Sermon Video: One Humanity United in Christ - Ephesians 2:15-18

Having made peace with God through his own sacrifice, how does Jesus envision his followers moving forward?  Jesus sees us as one humanity.  All divisions, distinctions, barriers, and whatever else the human heart may attempt, are made null and void.  In Christ we are one.

In Paul's day the focus was upon unity between his Jewish brethren and the gentile believers who had come to God through Jesus.  The Covenant of Moses at Sinai stood between the two groups, which is why God as its original author chose to set it aside in the New Covenant.

Beginning of Wisdom (Torah Club) lesson #37: More Gnostic Dualism, pre-existence of the soul, and extra-biblical reliance

 

“The sages said that the Messianic Era might have commenced at that point, but the children of Israel lost the opportunity.  Likewise, in the days of the apostles, the kingdom was again at hand.  If the generation had heeded the message of Yeshua and the twelve disciples, they could have entered the Messianic Era.  They failed to do so.  They lost the opportunity.” – p. 4

So, unnamed “sages” think that had Israel while journeying out of Egypt been more obedient God would have sent the Messiah right then and there.  That’s a bold theory, it certainly isn’t derived from Scripture.  Likewise, FFOZ is teaching that the Jewish community to whom Jesus came had the power to usher in the Messianic Era immediately after the death of Jesus?  How is this supposed to work?  If they had accepted him fully, the Kingdom would have been founded without his death?  But if he was rejected, as the prophets foretold, how exactly was there ever a chance of the Kingdom being founded right away?  I have no idea why they want to teach this, but they’re not getting it from the Word of God.  

“Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom of Israel?” – Acts 1:6

“The soul descends into this world on a mission.  Why does it leave a place of comfort and repose to enter a world of hardship and struggle?  Only to take advantage of this world’s opportunities to serve God, seek His presence, and love others…the soul knows there are no guarantees of success.  The soul enters the world at great personal risk.” – p. 5

Once again, we have theology being built upon the heretical teaching of the pre-existence of the human soul.  For whatever reason, FFOZ/Lancaster believe so much in this idea that it comes up over and over again in lesson after lesson.  The whole idea doesn’t make any sense.  God and our souls were dwelling together “in comfort and repose” but decided to risk eternal separation from God by becoming ignorant of that past and living here on the chance that they would find their way back to God??  Do the people who were raised in the Church and now sit in Torah Club meetings really buy this nonsense?

“How many opportunities to experience the Messiah and contribute to the redemption do we forfeit every day?  He stands at the door and knocks, but the slumbering soul, comfortably tucked inside the physical body, does not want to get out of bed.” – p. 7

You are a whole person: body, soul, and spirit.  You do NOT have a spirit “tucked inside” your body.  You are every part of you, indivisible.  The irony of these ideas borrowed from medieval Jewish mysticism is that they have far more in common with Greek Gnostic Dualism than with 1st Century Judaism.  Also, we say “no” to Jesus because our soul is too lazy and comfortable??  That’s no version of the sin nature that I’ve ever read in scripture.  Hold that thought…

“Whenever you have a difficult choice to make, choose the harder thing.  The harder thing usually turns out to be the better choice.  The more lenient path should always be viewed with suspicion.” – p. 11

This fits right in with someone trying to replace Grace with Law, Faith with Works.  You need to work harder to please God is what they're selling to you.  Don’t get me wrong, Christian discipleship is very hard work, but that’s because we’re trying to purge our hearts and minds of the sinful nature we were born with, not because we’re supposed to default to the “harder thing.”  FYI, this is not how a moral compass works.  We are supposed to do the right thing, the righteous thing, whether or not it is easy or hard.

“For example, suppose you were thinking about hosting Sabbath guests on a Friday night…This isn’t a good week for that?  I have a busy schedule this week, and the house is a mess.  I would have to spend extra on groceries.  And who knows what their dietary standard might be?  My kitchen’s surely not kosher enough for them.  It’s exhausting to even thing about cooking in this heat, Shabbat starts so late at this time of year…” – p. 12

And here we have a casually inserted example of the thing that so many Torah Club members insist FFOZ isn’t doing: Convincing Gentiles to live like Jews.   Why this particular example of something that is hard that we may be too lazy to do?  Why is the context kosher eating and Sabbath keeping?  If you are lazy, that is, a bad disciple, you won’t put in the effort to obey the Law of Moses, but if you’re really dedicated like Boaz, Daniel, Aaron, Jacob and the rest, you will gladly take upon yourself the yolk of the Law.  The proof of their goal is right on the page!

“If his bodily movements are sluggish, the movements of his spirit also become dull and lifeless.  This is verified by experience.” – Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzatto, The Path of the Upright  “The sages teach, ‘One sin leads to another sin’…The sages teach, ‘One mitzvah leads to another mitzvah.’ Soon both the spirit and the flesh are strong.” – p. 14

In an effort to equate physical activity with spiritual health, this lesson goes so far as to quote Benjamin Franklin.  But that’s not the reason to note this section.  This may sound like a broken record, but once again we have a Torah Club lesson that quotes “the sages” without ever saying which one, when, or where.  That’s just sloppy scholarship and the kind of thing one can’t ask in follow-up, “Do they really teach that?”  It is also another lesson where not a single Christian theologian of any century is quoted, rather Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzatto’s book is quoted twice at length.  Was this Rabbi a follower of Jesus?  Actually, he was an 18th century mystic who claimed to have received direct divine revelation.  Is this someone whose ideas the followers of Jesus ought to study uncritically?  Should we be taking advice on Christian discipleship from this source?  Significant danger signs that FFOZ doesn't even acknowledge.

“Group Discussion: Read Romans 8:5-14 out loud and discuss.  Keep in mind that the term ‘flesh’ is short for the Hebrew idiom ‘flesh and blood,’ an idiom that refers to the physical human body.” – p. 15

{For comparison, what Romans 8:5-14 actually says is below}

Romans 8:5-14  New International Version   Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.  9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. 10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life[a] because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.  12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.  14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

No, no, no, a thousand times no.  The Apostle Paul is NOT warning the church at Rome about the physical human body.  This is a bastardized interpretation of Paul that has no basis in the context of Romans nor the argumentation of Paul in any of his writings.  You are a whole human being, not a spirit at war with your physical body.  These are heresies that the Early Church soundly rejected when they took the form of Gnosticism.  FFOZ is repackaging that ancient heresy, evidently assuming its followers will be unaware that the Church long ago rejected a spiritual vs. physical dualism, or that they won’t care.  Either way, this is NOT what Paul is teaching.

“The physical body, which seeks comfort in this world, does not understand the gravity of the loss, but the soul will later lament every lost opportunity…When the soul leaves the body and returns to the place from whence it came…During that accounting, the soul grieves more over the many lost opportunities to do good and carry out its mission on earth than it does over the transgressions and sins it committed.” – P. 20

Where to begin.  We have in full force the Gnostic dualism and pre-existence of the human soul that the Early Church rejected as heresy.  Here in FFOZ’s Torah Club materials they are taught as facts without any biblical support, one should instead simply trust the extra-biblical sources from which this ideas were taken.   Lastly, will we (not just our souls apart from our body as depicted here) regret more the things we failed to do than the sins we committed?  That probably depends a lot upon the life a person lived, what they did and did not do.  If you’re wondering if this assertion is supported by a text of scripture properly quoted in context, you haven’t gotten the hang of how these Torah Club lessons work yet.

* This material originally appeared as a YouTube video on 1/22/25: The Beginning of Wisdom, lesson #:37 Cataloging the unorthodox teachings of the Torah Club materials

Beginning of Wisdom (Torah Club) lesson #36 - Subjective Reality & Diminishing all revelation except what was given to Moses

“The mirror analogy describes our experience of life, the universe, and everything.  We think of ourselves as seeing the real world, but what are we experiencing?  Only electrical sensory inputs channeled through a bio-chemical nervous system connected to a central processing unit of tangled neurons struggling to render some sort of interpretation of those signals.  Our brains work like computers to simulate the environment around us.  No one sees reality; we see our brain’s best attempt to process sensory input.”- p. 12

“That’s part of what Paul was getting at when he said, ‘For now, we see in a mirror dimly’ (1 Corinthians 13:12).  It’s not a polished mirror.  We aren’t getting the whole picture.  We can see only in part.  The world we think of as reality exists only inside our head.  Every person creates his or her own personal reality.” – p. 12

“To be in close conversation with Absolute Reality is prophecy at the highest level: the level of Moses.  As explained above, the Hebrew world for vision also means mirror.  Numbers 12:6 could be translated to say, ‘If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a mirror.’  But it’s not a polished mirror.  For most prophets, it’s merely a dim reflection – not the personal experience of God that Moses knew.  It’s only an imperfect reflection, many times removed.” – p. 18

“Playing on the double meaning of the word – vision and mirror – the Midrash Rabbah contrasts Moses’ exalted level of prophecy against that of the other prophets.  All other prophets saw their prophetic visions dimly through nine mirrors.” – p. 18{quoting Leviticus Rabbah 1:14}

Why do I have the feeling that Daniel Lancaster wants me to take the Red Pill?  If that Matrix reference didn’t connect with you, in that 1999 movie Keanu Reeve’s character Neo is told by a guide named Morpheus that the reality he thinks that he is living in isn’t real.  Not really real anyway, it is just a computer simulation.

It may seem like a post-modern idea to doubt that reality exists beyond our own perception of it, but in reality, apologies for that double-usage, the idea had its heyday in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Empiricist philosophers John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume.  Long before computer special effects, there were philosophers who doubted that we could have any genuine knowledge of what is real beyond our own perception of it.

The great debate between the Rationalists and the Empiricists that set the stage for modern Western thought is too big a topic for this venue, but one effect of the Empiricist’s rejection of the tenants of Rationalism speaks to the danger of what the First Fruits of Zion are teaching here: Individual realities.  If reality is an individual construction, not a thing with its own true nature and existence, notions such as Fact and Truth invariably become fuzzy, antiquated, even ridiculed.  There is no longer any Truth, just “my truth” and “your truth”.

This example reminds us of some of the deep contradictions and dissonance within the belief system that FFOZ’s leaders have constructed: On the one hand, they claim to represent 1st century Jewish Christian thought and practice, on the other hand, they embrace the individualistic mystical experience of medieval Kabbalah, which of course is full of concepts that were entirely foreign to the cultural stream of 1st century Judaism and/or Christianity.  Why is FFOZ teaching extreme individual relativism?  Where is this headed?  

The second topic in this lesson that jumps out as deeply dangerous is the insistence drawn from the Leviticus Rabbah (Midrash), that ONLY Moses had full and clear revelation from God.  The prophets Elijah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, John the Baptist?  They only saw a dim mirror, 9 reflections of reality, not “Absolute Reality” itself.  The practical, and intended by FFOZ, effect of this foolishness is to elevate the Torah and diminish all other scriptures to a secondary status.

Why?  Because to them Torah is eternal.  Torah is the essence of God’s nature.  Torah surpasses all.  Wait a minute, what about the Word of God?  What about Jesus Christ, God of God, God dwelling among us?  Surely the Gospels have at least an equal level of clarity and wisdom as that given to Moses?  Nope, the Torah Club lesson doesn’t say that, “Our highest level of the revelation of God in this current world does not attain the level of Moses.” (p. 19)

The thing is, the Gospels don’t say any of this, FFOZ is saying it.  This is what Jesus says about what he is revealing to his followers:

John 14:6-7,9  Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”  Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

In addition to diminishing the portions of scripture not given to Moses directly at Sinai, this bizarre “mirror theory” of FFOZ also treats the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church Age as an inferior revelation.  How can we know Truth and Reality beyond the Torah?  Lancaster tweaks Luke 7:28 on p. 19 to emphasize our limitation in this era, the brackets are his: “Among those born of women, there is no [prophet] greater than John, yet [the prophet] who is least [in the Messianic Era will be] greater than he.”  Yes, this is more of Lancaster changing scripture through his own translations to make it fit what FFOZ is teaching, he follows it up with this conclusion: “In the Messianic Era, we will attain the level of Moses – the level of face-to-face.” (p. 19)

Lesson 36 of The Beginning of Wisdom leans heavily on extra-biblical sources {Wisdom of Solomon, Ascension of Isaiah, Talmud, Midrash, and even Irenaeus’ The Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching} to sow the seeds of doubt about reality being anything greater than our own perception, and doubts about any/all revelation given by God to anyone other than Moses.   In the end, this journey of doubt will leave only one source of Truth standing, by design: the Torah of Moses.

* Note, this analysis first appeared as a YouTube video on my channel on 11/20/24: The Beginning of Wisdom, lesson #:36 Cataloging the unorthodox teachings of the Torah Club materials

Listen to the Word of God: 62 Scripture passages that refute 'Christian' Nationalism - #34 Acts 17:24-28

Acts 17:24-28  New International Version

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

The commercialism of selling toys aside, it is endearing when a child chooses to imitate a parent by pretending to do grown-up tasks with various tools.  One aspect of such scenarios to consider is that some children will indeed grow up to do what their parent did, in much the same way.  A boy who pretends to build things with his plastic tool set me actually become a contractor just like his dad.  

Where 'Christian' Nationalism goes horribly wrong is when those who follow it seek to apply this idea to imitating God.  Are we to imitate God's morality?  Absolutely, we are commanded to be like-Christ in our usage of the Fruit of the Spirit.  It actually isn't optional, we must be like Jesus if we are to truly be his disciples.  But that's where our imitation ends.  We are NOT called to imitate God by judging others, nor are we called to imitate God's authority or dominion over others.  God is God, we are not.  We will never be a god in any way, shape, or form.

God, and God alone, exercises divine authority as both our Creator and the Judge of the living and the dead.  These qualities belong to God, not us.  In reality, God doesn't need our help in these matters, at all.  God has called us to be servants, not rulers, to offer our own lives as living sacrifices.  In this we imitate the self-sacrificial example of Jesus Christ.  The problem is, some folks would much rather imitate God upon-his-throne than Jesus stooping to wash his disciples' feet.  So rather than serving, they seek to accumulate power.  Contrary to the flattery we feel when our kids want to pretend to do our job, God doesn't find this amusing.

Let's let God be God and focus our passion on the servant's role that has been placed before us.

Sermon Video: Brought Near to God by the Blood of Christ - Ephesians 2:11-14

The amazing salvation provided by Jesus Christ has implications that ripple across every area we might consider.  In this case, the Apostle Paul focuses on how the Blood of Christ has brought us near to God.  Previous barriers have been eliminated.  Previous assistance (Temple, Priest, animal sacrifice) has ceased to be needed.  Now, because of Jesus, was can commune directly with God.

To illustrate this wondrous development.  Paul tells us that Jesus has destroyed the dividing wall that separated into groups (Gentiles, Jewish women, Jewish men, Jewish priests) those who sought God's presence at the Temple.