In the first hour, Dr. Brown speaks with former Palestinian Muslim — and Jew-hater — Walid Shoebat; in the second hour, Dr. Brown invites listeners to debate whether the dietary laws are binding on believers today. Listen live here 2-4 pm EST, and call into the show at (866) 348 7884 with your questions and comments.
Hour 1:
Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: We have no excuse not to know who and what Islam is.
Hour 2:
Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: We might divide on the issue of the dietary laws, but whatever our view let us keep Jesus the Messiah central.
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Ray,
It is obvious that you do not know what I am talking about. I am quoting scripture and talking about the details of what the scripture states. You are making broad generalizations about things the scripture never states. Your idea of the New Covenant does not line up with the scripture that speaks of it.
Jeremiah 31
31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:
(Who is the new covenant made with? Judah and Israel. Not with the gentiles. According to Paul, the gentiles must be grafted into Israel in order to partake of the covenants of promise. Paul says that we are no longer gentiles. “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world…Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;”-Eph. 2:11-12,19 We are now fellowcitizens with the saints…the set apart people…Israel. If we are still gentiles we still have NO covenant, not a new covenant, with YHWH.)
32 Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:
33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.
(So this time YHWH’s law will be written on our hearts instead of on stone. No change in the law…just like Y’shua said. The covenant will be different, not because there will be a different law, but because we will love YHWH’s law instead of having it imposed upon us from the outside. The Hebrew idiom of having something “written on our hearts” means that we want to do that something. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.”-1 Jo. 5:2-3 So if we find that YHWH’s commandments, even the small ones, are grievous instead of fulfilling, we are not walking in the new covenant. If we come up with all kinds of reasons that those commandments are not binding, it proves that we do not want to do them. If we do not want to do them, we are not loving YHWH…according to John. It proves that our minds are carnal and that we are in the flesh…according to Paul. “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.”-Ro. 8:7-8 So our love of YHWH’s law proves our love for Him when we do it instead of just hearing it. If we cannot or will not keep YHWH’s commandments, we do not love His law nor Him properly. “Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.”-Ro. 3:31 The law of YHWH is established only when it is something that we want to do because it is written on our hearts because of the new covenant. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.”-Mt. 5:17 If Messiah fulfilling the law means to us that it is no longer in effect, we are voiding and destroying the law by our faith instead of establishing it.)
34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.
(In the new covenant that YHWH has made with Israel, we do not need a priesthood to inform us constantly and remind us to keep YHWH’s law. It is something we want to do. We want to do it because YHWH has freely forgiven us of our sins and iniquities. What is sin? “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”-1Jo. 3:4 How absurd to think that we would be inclined to go back to the very same sin, the very same breaking of YHWH’s law, if we are really grateful for being forgiven for having broken it. From the least to the greatest will know YHWH. How do we know for sure that we know Him? “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.”-1 Jo. 2:3-6 How did He walk. He kept all of the commandments and taught others to do the same. He is the greatest in the Kingdom and He did, and still does, live up to His own words. “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”-Mt. 5:19 If we do not want to keep YHWH’s commandments and we are not empowered to do so, do we know Him and love Him as the new covenant says? Are we really still gentiles and still strangers to the covenants of promise?)
35 Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name:
36 If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.
37 Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.
(“I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”-Ro 11:1
YHWH has not cast off Israel. Israel is not going away. They are the light of the world and the salt of the earth. He hasn’t replaced them with the church. The word church in the Greek is “ekklesia.” It means ruling council. The true church is the made up of the people that have sworn allegiance to Messiah and His kingdom. They are in training to rule and reign with Him in His coming kingdom on earth. Messiah is the King of Israel. He does not choose those of another nation to rule His people. If we are not grafted into Israel, we will not rule with Him. If we do and teach even YHWH’s least commandments, we will be great in His Kingdom. If we neglect to do and teach the smallest of YHWH’s commandments, we will be least in the kingdom…if we really are grafted into Israel and partakers of the new covenant.)
Shalom
I kind of thought that there would be response to the above post by Ray. It is interesting that churchianity has simply assumed that they are the ones that the new covenant belongs to and that it is somehow about doing away with YHWH’s law instead of about restoring the priesthood of the believer and writing that very same law upon our hearts instead of on stone. It is also interesting that they do not usually recognize the importance of being joined/grafted to Israel in order to partake of the new covenant as the scriptures teach it. Israel is who YHWH chose to be the salt and light to the world and according to Romans 11, He is not repenting of that gift and calling.
Shalom
I am disappointed to hear Dr. Brown’s opinion on this. The argument is not for health, necessarily. They are, however, to establish there is a separation between the clean and the unclean. However, the cleanness is not in the people themselves (Acts 10), but the separation exists between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness (explored fully by Paul in Colossians and Ephesians).
When God established his house, his Kingdom, he issued a law to our first father. The very first sin was a violation of this law, a dietary law. God said not to eat of one tree, and our first father rebelled against that law. So far, this is not a Jewish issue, but rather a sanctification issue regardless of heritage.
The existence of food laws is also seen in Genesis with Noah, taking 7 pairs of clean animals while only 1 pair of unclean animals. When Noah leaves the ark, he sacrifices. Obviously, he did not sacrifice an unclean animal because that would have caused extinction. Noah, like Abel, knew to offer a clean animal. Seems as though this law precedes Sinai.
Then we have the Law, which already preexisted, codified in Lev 11.
In Isa 56 shows that the Gentiles are to keep 1) the Sabbath [also created at Creation for man; and reiterated that the sabbath was for man by Jesus (Mark 2:27)] and 2) the covenant. What covenant? There is only one. There is much to do about the New Covenant applying to Gentiles. But when you read the initiation of the New COvenant, it is only made with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, and is made consisting of the same Law, only the people are different. Gentiles, who could come alongside Israel from the beginning, can come alongside the Jewish believer in the New Covenant. But remember, the laws are the same.
Finally, why isn’t this commanded directly in the NT? The answer is because the NT purpose is not to restate the law. The purpose of the NT is to explain the redemptive work of the Messiah, and to show that the Gentiles who were locked up in the kingdom of darkness ruled by demons can now be grafted into the Kingdom of God. This is why, as Witherington explains in Acts 15, Gentiles were to abstain for the four things dealing with idolatry! These four things were necessary to demonstrate a complete break with idolatry. They aren’t a complete “to do list” for Gentiles. They were instructed to learn Moses who is taught Sabbath by Sabbath in the Synagogues (Acts 15:21)