Y Not I

10 responses so far ↓

• 1 Lee Underwood // Jun 19, 2007 at 3:19 pm

  Shalom,

  I was doing some checking of links to my shamar.org blog and came across your site. I thought you might be interested in some music from a band that I play with. You can check it out at: http://www.azuza.org/

  Blessings,
  Lee

• 2 Andrew Pitchford // Oct 6, 2007 at 7:04 am

  Hi, can you help me. I’m impressed with your site and have referred it to some friends. Can you advise what plugins you are using. I especially want to use your comments, bible verse and stats plugins on my sites. Can you help?
  Andrew

• 3 Israel // Jan 22, 2008 at 2:11 pm

  שלום

  I wanted to make you aware and invite you to participate in the vision and in the discussions at the Jerusalem Council. It’s about re-appointing a new Jerusalem Council for Messianic believers worldwide!

  The Jerusalem Council
  http://www.JerusalemCouncil.org

  The Vision

  The vision of the Jerusalem Council project is to bring into one online community the scattered and divided faithful remnant of Israel - the believers of Yeshua (Jesus) on the earth today - in order to provide them a central place with which to engage one another in discussion, dialogue, and debate on the issues that unite and divide them, and to edify one another in walking out their faith in the Messiah through unconditional love as modeled by the Messiah, and expected of his followers.

  Our vision also includes the hope of re-appointing a beit din for Messianic believers worldwide, to be called the Jerusalem Council, or Beit HaDin HaYerushalmi, modeled after the original, and submitted to the new Jewish Sanhedrin in issues that do not contradict obedient faith to Messiah Yeshua or his teachings; to provide guidance in issues that may conflict with the Sanhedrin, or in issues that contradict the primacy of the written Word of God, or in issues which may divide the Body of Messiah; to promote the unity of the Body of Messiah worldwide by Spirit-led direction through means of accountability, open dialogue, reasoned doctrine, and sound leadership; and to provide corporate and individual edification by providing apologetic, midrashic, and halakhic guidance for the Body of Messiah.

  Our Purpose

  The purpose of the Jerusalem Council is to promote the unity of the global Body of Messiah through reasoned justice (rulings), abundant mercy (humble servant-leadership), and faithfulness (to the Messiah and His Ways), in Truth and Love, by providing a central place for Messianic believers worldwide to discuss scripture, traditions, issues, and other topics that face us, and through such dialogue provide a means for midrashic (apologetic), and halakhic (discipleship) guidance so that our lifestyle and theology may be of one accord with the bible (Torah - Law, Netuvim - Prophets, Ketuvim - Writings, and the Sh’liac Ketuvim - Apostolic Writings), and with one another - so that the Body of Messiah may be unified and made ready for the return of King Messiah Yeshua.

  The site is all about promoting the unity of the faith, without compromising the truth of HaShem’s Torah! Please visit and share with others. We online Messianics are a very very scattered bunch, and we do better in promoting the truth, and promoting our communities when we come together in greater numbers. JerusalemCouncil.org is provided as a site to do just that! Come check it out!

  Israel
  Site Developer
  http://www.JerusalemCouncil.org

• 4 Sheila // Apr 8, 2008 at 12:31 pm

  Hi, I just found this site when I was trying to get the lyrics to I Delight In Your Shabbat. I had already downloaded some of Aviad Cohen’s music but I wanted the lyrics also. I’m a pretty conflicted Christian in that I felt led by God about 13-14 yrs. ago to have our house church called House of Prayer on Saturday in accordance with scripture ISA 56:6 And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD
  to serve him,
  to love the name of the LORD,
  and to worship him,
  all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
  and who hold fast to my covenant–

  ISA 56:7 these I will bring to my holy mountain
  and give them joy in my house of prayer.
  Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
  will be accepted on my altar;
  for my house will be called
  a house of prayer for all nations.”
  The house church folded after 2 1/2-3 years, coinciding with the salvation of a young orthodox Jewish professor who we had been praying for that duration. Then my husband and I moved to San Antonio and I felt led to go to the nearest church. We have now moved several times and I am in a regular non-denominational church but once again the issue of the Sabbath has come up in my heart again. If the plans and designs of the Temple and worship in the Old Testament was given as copies of the design in Heaven that’s a pretty eternal seeming issue. If the issue was so important that violaters of the Sabbath could be killed, then the issue seems very important. Then I read in the prophets of Sabbath once again being an issue in the Millenium. I was told as a child in the Baptist Church that the Sabbath was changed to Sunday
  to celebrate the resurrection of Christ and that because Jesus kept the whole law, then we don’t have to. When I read church history approx. 300 AD that the church was ordered to no longer
  worship on the Sabbath as an anti-semitic tactic, I felt crushed and lied to most all my life. But I still don’t know where to go now and how to practice it because I hear the Rabbis added a bunch of extra laws or fences and I don’t know what is applicable to me. There are no Messianic churches nearby-about 35-40 miles away. Wasn’t there even a travel stipulation for on the Sabbath. Not that it makes any difference but I found out just last year that my dad’s mom was a German Jew but her family’s religion was Apostolic. Right now I have more questions than answers and if I ask my pastor I will get his slant on the truth and if I ask a Messianic pastor, I will get another and now I find that some of the Messianic churches are as mixed up as the regular Christian churches and there seems to be conflict there also. God help us-send us the truth.

• 5 B Z // Apr 14, 2008 at 10:16 pm

  Sheila, sorry it has taken a few days for me to respond, but for some reason this comment found its way to the blogs spam folder, and it went unnoticed for a few days.

  First of all there is a saying that if you ever find a perfect congregation, do not go, because you will cause it to no longer be perfect. The truth is that we all fall short and we are all works in progress. The Spirit is writing God’s Law upon our hearts. It seems pretty evident that is a process, so I would caution against looking for some place that claims to have every answer.

  Also, the Internet is like any street corner and thus there are any number of voices screaming out different opinions, often quite contrary to one another, even if they claim to be speaking of the same thing. The best advise is to test all things against the Word of God, against Scripture. If you go and talk to your Pastor, take what he says and test it against Scripture. Also test any thoughts that you have against Scripture. If it is God speaking to you, then there will be nothing there that is contrary to Scripture. If it is, then it is not of God.

  Having set all those things up in advance I will say a few things. First of all if you feel lead to worshiping God on the seventh day, I see nothing wrong with that. I think that anyone that tells you that you can’t is on shaky ground Scripturally. It seems to me that one that is trying to convince on that would be building up their own law and legalism. Many verses that are sometimes used against Saturday like Romans 14:5 and Colossians 2:14, 16 can be seen as giving freedom in the day, which would seem to include the freedom to keep the day. This is a big subject and one with many different sides. I worship on the seventh day Sabbath and do not see anything in Scripture indicating that it has been moved to Sunday. At the same time I do not think it sin to worship on Sunday. I think it is between God and those people. For me it would be wrong, however, I do no necessarily think it wrong for all. We are all at different places in our walks and God is working on different things with all of us.

  Another thing that I think is important to the discussion is the idea of the important things. The important things of faith is that Yeshua (Jesus) died for our sins and offers us the gift of eternal life. I was once taught that there are certain things inside a circle, beliefs that if some differ, then we could not have fellowship with those people. Outside that circle there are things in which we can agree to disagree with. I think which day is the day God wants you to worship on would fall outside the circle. Does that mean I think you should not explore the issue? No, however, I think it should be kept in perspective and only after your faith in the things inside the circle is sure, then explore these things and see where God leads.

  This is not to indicate that the subject is not important, just that there are some things more important than it and be sure to be solid on those things, those things being what salvation is and where it comes from and how does one receive it.

  To cover a few things that you mentioned. Yes the Rabbis have added to the Scripture. They believe they have been given the authority to do so, as the Catholic Church believes it has the authority to do the same. Once again, test it all against the Bible. Orthodox Jews will not drive on the Sabbath, they will not turn on or off lights, however they have no problem using these things if they are on a timer or switched by a non Jew. Personally, I find this searching for loopholes to be silly and not in the spirit of Gods Word. I drive to services each week, and to me that is not an issue at all. Maybe to some it is, but I think very few Messianic Jews have a problem with driving on the Shabbat. By the way, the concept is an expansion on Exodus 35:3, believing that the spark plug is a fire kindled and the same with electricity. I think Yeshua taught quite a bit about how to rightly observe the Sabbath. What would Yeshua do might be a good guide in this matter. Certainly He celebrated the seventh day Sabbath. However, the customs and traditions of men he either rejected or at the very least showed the lack of legal binding they had. And He certainly showed a strong understanding of what the Sabbath was for and what the spirit if it was.

  Anyway, I hope that maybe these thoughts might help direct you in this topic. If you have further questions feel free to write and ask. I will do my best to answer, or direct you to others more qualified to answer. Blessings upon you and your family.

• 6 Tom Albrecht // Apr 15, 2008 at 12:14 pm

  This is a big subject and one with many different sides. I worship on the seventh day Sabbath and do not see anything in Scripture indicating that it has been moved to Sunday. At the same time I do not think it sin to worship on Sunday. I think it is between God and those people. For me it would be wrong, however, I do no necessarily think it wrong for all. We are all at different places in our walks and God is working on different things with all of us.

  Not to be argumentative, but was this either/or attitude also permissible under the old covenant system in Israel? Was it OK for individuals to decide to keep the Sabbath on Sunday? If not, when did the rules change?

• 7 B Z // Apr 15, 2008 at 1:02 pm

  I think I have in the past stated that these types of things are between God and the individual. I am not the judge of anyone that lived under the Old Covenant system, nor do I really judge others today. At least I try not to.

  I will leave judgments of right and wrong to God, however I guess if others want to express their opinions on the subject that is fine as well. I have no issue with each one of following as God leads them. If God lead and directed the Israelites to live a certain way, then that is fine and good. If today He leads others to follow other days, possibly only for a season, then to me that seems fine as well. A heart directed towards God seems to me to always have been the goal and those that are willing to follow as lead always seem to be considered righteous for that.

  To me the greater teaching is to search Scriptures and pray to God and, for me at least things seems to become pretty clear as to right and wrong, Godly choices and carnal choices.

  I find great joy and blessing in observing the Shabbat from Friday night to Saturday, but just like anything else, only if God directs one to that will it bear any fruit. I guess one who worships on Sunday could say the same thing, and once again, far from me to judge them. Maybe God will direct one of us in a different direction one day and for the time being is working on something else in our lives.

  So, I don’t think I have an either/or attitude but a God is right attitude. Hopefully that comes across.

• 8 Sheila // May 8, 2008 at 10:28 am

  Thanks for all of your responses. Thanks enough for caring to respond. If I gave you the wrong impression, I apologize. I don’t think I am perfect nor do I think there is a “perfect church”.
  I was just looking for something that felt like home and where agreement could be found on most important issues. I have tried to be faithful to what I believe the Lord is telling me and leading me as well as trying to be submissive to my husband who highly discourages me from attending church on the sabbath but he doesn’t even go to church on Sunday either. In the past, when I tried to keep the Sabbath, he referred to me as “wanna-be Jew”. Now I find out last year, that my paternal grandmother was a German Jew.
  Basically, my husband doesn’t want me to be an extremist but I can’t deny the deep passion in me for the Lord.

• 9 Zach Doppelt // May 30, 2008 at 10:09 am

  Shalom!

  I am a pastor, and I have been a believer since I was very young. My father came to faith in Yeshua when he was in his twenties, having grown up in a reformed Jewish home.

  Quick non spiritual (depending how you look at it) question. I read your about description. Why aren’t you on Linux Ubuntu, Fedora or any of the other distributions? I have been extremely pleased with them…

• 10 B Z // May 30, 2008 at 11:12 am

  Good question. And actually there is one computer in the house with Ubuntu on it. That is my 10 year old son’s computer. I set it up to dual boot because I could not get Pirates of the Carribean online to run on Linux. Wine came the closest but could log in. Cedega was worse. So I made it dual boot, but now the Linux is kind of broken. I upgraded it to the latest Ubuntu version and it broke a bunch of stuff. I might have to start over again.

  For my own computer, I had my desktop running strictly on Linux before (I have done Fedora Suse, Ubuntu and others in the past), but when I got my newest computer, it had Windows and laziness (or being too busy might be a good excuse I could use) caused me to leave it on XP. After I tired to upgrade to Vista and found the shock of how bad and not ready that version is, I loaded Linux and was going to use it exclusively. I first tried an interesting distribution called Sabayon, which tries to be cutting edge graphically. It had problems with my two different sizes dual screen setup, especially with an ATI video card like I have, and I just love the dual screen and having my email and IM buddy list on one screen off to the side, so when I could not get that to work I restored my XP setup. I want to set it up to dual boot and try and do most things in Unix as I really enjoy the platform better, especially all that can be done from the terminal, and I really need to do that, but I just haven’t yet.

  Linux distros are great, but there are always issues to get over, especially if you are a techie and have something that might be beyond a standard setup (like dual screen monitors of different sizes and resolutions). Unless I have lots of time to go over forums and find answers, I guess because I like things just so, it makes it hard for me to wait out an answer, and I end up back at a place where everything is working the way I basically like it.

  So basically the answer is laziness, but I need to get off my duff and setup that dual boot as there are still a few things that I need to run under Windows (Love Digsby, a program called Guitar Pro and an occasional game of Civ IV).

  Thanks for the question. I need to get a few more posts up here, and have some thing to post about, but have been extra busy [or maybe extra lazy ]

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