Hello,
I wanted to know why Christianity today is so totally differnt than its Jewish background and if that is not maybe wrong?
I mean Jesus was Jew also all the Apostles and there is no clear statement where Judaism is abandoned.
It seems more the other way round that through Jesus Christ all people could become Jews (hope you understand what I mean
I mean most Christians do not keept the mosaic law and do not celebrate the jewish holidays (like Jesus and the Apostles did).
What do you think? Schould Christianity (even this name was not chosen by Jesus and the Apostles) turn back to its Jewish roots?
Greetings and God bless
Dani
Hi Dani,
We don’t need to change providence for the world, but we can change our own personal destiny by making choices which we believe to be God centered, or however you wish to explain it. The church went away from Jewish roots for many reasons:
1./ the Jews had become particularly hostile to Rome, and they enjoyed the emperors wrath. Christians tried to distance themselves from being political agitators.
2./ the Jews became associated with the death of Christ, so early christians were not very forgiving of this betrayal.
3./ the Jews became hostile to christians, and they were very antagonistic toward christian interpretations of the Messiah, the virgin birth, the use of the Septuagint, and the popularity christians were receiving with the average person.
4./ The Jews were banished from Judea after the revolt of Shimon Bar Kokhba (132 AD), and the “area of Judea was renamed Palaestina in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel.”
5./ The Israelite religion which was practiced by the Abrahamic descendents was hijacked by a specific sect of Judaism, Pharisees, and the association of Judaism eventually became absorbed into the Pharisee sect. As the 1905 Jewish Encyclopedia states:
Again, as Rabbi Finkelstein writes of the modern Jews in The Pharisees:
All of these reasons contributed to the church further and further distancing itself from the Jewish faith.
Steve
Hello Steve,
thank you very much for your answer.
I understand the reasons you told but on the other hand I am asking myself what Jesus intented for the church.
I mean He said the following:
“Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil.”…
“Therefore, the man who infringes even the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be considered the least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:17 and following)
To me it seems like Jesus intented us to keep the Law and the Prophets? Or what did He mean.
Thank you and God bless
Dani
Jesus also said, in exactly the same place, that unless one’s righteousness hyper-exceeds that of the Pharisees and scribes, by no means will one be entering into the kingdom of the heavens: and those were people who were so zealous for keeping Torah that they had added a bunch of other teaching to safeguard keeping Torah! – which Jesus was critical about.
Then again, Matthew also reports Jesus saying in the Greater Condemnations of Matthew 23, that the Pharisees had been doing something right in tithing so meticulously, and that having taken the seat of Moses the people should follow what they say (though not the hypocrisy they were doing, leading them to meticulously tithe even their spices but to set aside mercy and faith and judging which are the weightier matters of the Law.
Anyway, in the past two or three decades (here in North America at least), Christian groups across the board from Catholic to Baptist have been more-or-less working to reconnect to the Jewish roots of Christianity, not even counting the slow growth of Messianic Jewish Christian congregations.
So yes, there are good (or at least understandable) socio-cultural reasons why Christians felt like they had to distance themselves from Judaism early in Christian history, but we’ve been coming back recently, too. 
I do not think God ever changes. I don’t even think He has changed the way He deals with His children from the Old Testament to the New Testament. The commandment is the same: Love the Lord you God with all your heart, all your soul,all your mind, and all your strength…and love your neighbor as yourself. Indeed, that is basically what Rabbi Hillel told some who asked him to summarize the Torah wihle standing on one foot: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn”.
It’s not that the Law changed, the Law never changes. It’s just that it is evident over and over that Israel (or any one for that matter) cannot keep the Law, as hard as they’ve tried. Maybe they tried too hard, because by Jesus’ day, the religious leaders took the Law to extremes, even surpassing the intent of the Law, injecting traditions ordained by man, and not God, which ruined the effect the Law was supposed to have. To them, the Law was an end, rather than a means, to please God.
Fact is, we cannot keep the Law in and of ourselves anyway, we need God’s Power and Spirit to accomplish that. And that is only available through the atonement of Jesus Christ, in His death, burial, and resurrection. Furthermore, Christ’s death signifies the crumbling of the division wall between the Jews and the Greeks (Gentiles), so that salvation is no longer just for the Jews, but for the whole world. We are free in Christ in that the Spirit, not the Law leads us into righteousness with God, fulfilling the Law in it’s stead. So all the ceremonial observances fell by the wayside, and thus Christianity grew without the need for cultural ties to a particular sect or group.
Dani,
There are sects of Christians who strive to keep the Mosaic laws. Ultimately, to me, this is not desirable or even possible in our times. Leaving aside the more objectionable commandments such as stoning a son who disrespects and curses his parents (yes, you might WANT to at the moment, but later you’ll kick yourself – or maybe not . . .). We kind of frown on that sort of thing now-a-days, and I think we SHOULD frown on it. Calvin took it very seriously I hear and applied it to very young children. 
But moving on to the less objectionable portions, such as taking slaves only from amongst foreigners and making sure that even the slaves get to rest on the Sabbath . . . forcing a man who rapes a virgin to marry her or at the least pay a bride price if her father refuses the union . . . making a wife drink water with nasty ashes in it because her husband feels jealous, then waiting around to see if her belly swells and her thigh rots . . . this kind of stuff would be hard to carry out in the modern world.
I’m not trying to be mean or sarcastic – I’m only wanting to point out that following the Mosaic law for us, in modern society, often isn’t even possible. If you trim it down to ceremonial things like not boiling a kid in its mother’s milk, worshiping on the Sabbath, not wearing garments of mixed fibers, not planting your fields with more than one kind of seed, to us, it doesn’t even make sense. Why would God ask such a thing? Part of some nearby pagan fertility rites included boiling a kid in its mother’s milk. 
Besides! That’s just WRONG! 
The Sabbath was a time for introspection, rest, contemplation of God – if we don’t do that every day, or at least most days, we’re not following NT advice such as “pray without ceasing.” It’s great to have a special day, and if you want it to be Saturday (which isn’t, strictly speaking, the Sabbath most of the time – ask Stefcui! 
) that’s fine. I don’t think God is miffed about it either way. The idea of not mixing things means to me that we are not to mix worldliness into our devotion to God. I believe that this in particular (for Israel) pointed to mixing idolatry with the worship of God. A message the church still needs to take to heart, considering our own materialistic brand of idolatry, but that’s another post . . . .
Jesus said that all the law and the prophets could be summed up in “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.” Hard as keeping the 621(?) laws of Moses would be, Jesus’ summation is harder still.
Then there are the festivals. Fun, to have a special meal with loved ones – meaningful too, I think, and there’s nothing wrong with doing that if you have the desire and the energy. But are you going to offer the sacrifices proscribed for the various feast days? How do you keep the sacrificial laws today? I think that possibly when the Jews refused their Messiah (who is our ultimate sacrifice for sin) and kept on offering their sacrifices at the Temple, perhaps Father said, in effect, “Okay then. You keep offering these cattle when my Son has given Himself? We will allow the Temple to be destroyed to put a stop to this profanity.” That’s why Jesus wept over Jerusalem when He came to the point where He knew their decision was immanent and that they would choose badly. “Your house has been left to you desolate. How often would I have gathered you to myself as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not!”
We have a LOT to learn, studying our Jewish roots, but we can’t (imo) return to them – not really. And why would we want to do that? We are where we are today, and the Jews and the Gentiles are one in Christ (or will be). We are on a journey toward our Father’s house, and have passed many good and bad locations in that journey. Good because they were mileposts telling us we were going in the right direction; bad because we perhaps tried to cling to them rather than continuing on, going further up; going further in (to paraphrase CS Lewis). We need to learn from the past; both good and bad; and you’re right – we also should perhaps pick up some treasures that have been unwisely discarded – but we are not Jews (most of us) and we don’t need to try to be what we’re not. Paul’s letters make it clear that the Jewish contingent of the church should not attempt to impose Jewishness on the Gentiles, and the Gentile component shouldn’t ridicule the Jewish members for being so very Jewish, nor attempt to persuade them not to follow their culture. Ultimately, I think it’s about Jesus. If you choose to follow Him in a very Jewish way, that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too. Following Him is the important part, and loving one another.
Blessings, Cindy
I got this from Robin Parry’s blog - he was quoting someone else, and made no comments, so I cannot say if he is favorable to it or not. But here is the quote:
"One should not be misled into thinking that God’s immutability is like the immutability of a rock only more so. What God and rocks appear to have in common is only the fact that they do not change. The reason for their unchangeableness is for polar-opposite reasons. The Rock of Gibraltar does not change or changes very little because it is hardly in act at all, and the change that it does undergo is mainly from outside causes—wind and rain. God is unchangeable not because he is inert or static like a rock, but for just the opposite reason. He is so dynamic, so active that no change can make him more active. He is act pure and simple . . .
What the critics consistently fail to grasp is that God’s immutability is not opposed to his vitality. Nor need one hold together in some dialectical fashion his immutability and his vibrancy, as if in spite of being immutable he is nonetheless dynamic. Rather, it is precisely God’s immutability as actus purus that guarantees and authenticates his pure vitality and absolute dynamism. Thus, when the critics assert that because Aquinas and the tradition believe God to be immutable they espouse a static and inert conception of God, they but demonstrate their own lack of understanding."
There you are!
(Reading whilst peeling potatoes because I’m informed that it is not kosher, strictly speaking, to have instant mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. 
)
Funny. You must have a very modern kitchen to have a computer by the sink - or maybe you you the sink beside the computer?
Isn’t it amazing that we have all of these technologies to receive instant messaging wherever we are. God has a great deal in store for us if we are just now realizing all of the wonderful things that can be done with electricity. I believe technology is providential. God intended for us to discover things, and in many cases, God opened our eyes where we were unable to see.
Nah – this house is nearly a hundred years old (not one of the fancy old houses – just old ) I washed the spuds and I’m peeling them into a bowl on the dining room table, with my laptop in the background. Keeps me entertained. But yes, I am looking forward to seeing what things will be like. And electricity is one of those things. There’s just so much TO it – way more mysterious that I even imagined, and that’s only one thing.
i wonder if Dick has a fancy word for potatoes - I like ‘spuds’ and ‘taters’. 
First it should be noted that according to the apostle John, Jesus Himself broke the Sabbath:
Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God. (John 5:18)
Justin Martyr’s Explanation of the Sabbath to the Jews
(Justin lived from 110 – 165 A.D.)
Righteous Men of Old Kept No Sabbaths
Nature Does Not Observe Sabbath Days
God Himself Does Not Observe the Sabbath Day
The True Israelites Are Those Who Come to God Through Christ
We Are Now Required To Keep Sabbath Daily By Resting From Sin and Working Righteousness