Torahism Answering Hebrew Roots and Other Movements

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00:56

Well, welcome back to another Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rapoport, and just glad that you are with us.

01:06

The reality is we do these podcasts because we care that you get a good biblical education on all things.

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And this might, this, today's episode may be something new for many of you. For others of you, you're going to be saying,

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I've been wanting a resource that covers this topic. We're not going to tell you what the topic is, of course, just yet.

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And so I'm going to ask that what I want you to do is to slow it down.

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For those of you who are like me and play all podcasts at like triple speed, you may need to slow this one down because you're going to probably hear some things that are new.

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And you're going to need to process that and think about that. So you're going to want to maybe re -listen to this one because I think there's going to be a lot of information that will be new for folks and they're going to need to assimilate this.

02:01

Now, if you listened to the last episode, I hope you did. That was a powerful testimony that we had from Jeffrey Rice.

02:11

If you listened to it, you already understand that. But here was a guy who was kidnapped at a young age, at 11 years old.

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Robbed at gunpoint at, I think he said 12 years old. Gang member at 14, ends up leading the gangs.

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And now what does he do for a living? He rebinds Bibles with really nice soft leather.

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If you didn't listen to that one, you'll want to go back and listen to that. That was a powerful testimony.

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He shared some things that he has not shared publicly. And so that was, it was something for many of us who love fine

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Bibles. I've gotten some Bibles from Jeffrey and it was something that you'd want to listen to.

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Now what we're going to talk about today is the fact that there are different groups of people who fall into a camp and it's really hard to define this camp.

03:13

Maybe you've heard of terms like Hebrew Roots Movement. You've heard, if you listen to this podcast, you've heard

03:20

Black Hebrew Israelites before. They kind of fall into this same camp. You'll hear different language and it's really hard to pinpoint what is it that all these groups kind of have in common.

03:35

Because there really hasn't been a book written on these things. I've been asked, many of you who know my background, because I'm from a

03:43

Jewish background, I get asked constantly about the issue of Hebrew Roots. I get asked constantly, is there a resource that we could turn to, that we could go to, that we could look at, that will help us?

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I have a friend that's being pulled into this. Well, I got news for you. Now there is.

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So I want to welcome to the airwaves R .L. Sahlberg and his book, Torahism, and we're going to need to define that, but it's called

04:11

Torahism, Are Christians Required to Keep the Law of Moses? So Robert, welcome to The Wrap Report.

04:18

Thanks Andrew, appreciate it. So I got to let folks know that when you had someone contact me about your book,

04:26

I looked at the title and the subtitle, and I shared this with you privately, but I immediately went, oh, okay, this is going to be a book promoting living under the law.

04:40

And so I immediately assumed that, and I said, okay, I may end up being a little bit critical, and I think the email

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I sent to both you and I guess his secretary or whoever was it that contacted me. Yeah, that was

04:53

Carly from Williamson College Press. Yeah, so I was like, just to let you know, I'll read it.

04:59

I may be a little bit more critical. I'm from a Jewish background, so I do have some knowledge in this area. And you responded with, well,

05:06

I'm definitely going to be interested in your take on this. Oh, I know. Actually, when you said that, I really piqued my interest, because I was trying so hard to make sure

05:13

I was stating positions correctly, and as we'll get into, there's that nuance between full -on

05:20

Judaism and then this kind of halfway position of Torahism, and I wanted to make sure, you know, iron sharpens iron.

05:27

So I was really glad to have someone with your background take a look at it. Now, so before we get into, because I do want to talk about what is

05:33

Torahism, but first, for folks to get to know you, can you just give a little bit about your background, and then how did this come about for you?

05:41

I know in the introduction of the book you explained that, so I'm a little bit familiar, but for the audience, you're a new voice for them.

05:48

Just tell a little bit about yourself. Sure, yeah, I'm based in Nashville. I do a lot of writing.

05:55

This is actually my first published book. But I'm a theologian. I do some speaking, some teaching at my local church.

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I'm currently getting a master's degree in theological studies after about two decades of self -directed study.

06:09

And what else? I'm a recovering professional musician. Used to make my living doing that.

06:15

Now music is just a really big part of my ministry, what we're doing. My wife's a singer as well. And I've really been captured by all of these different types of,

06:27

I guess, for lack of a better word, heretical movements that I just keep creeping into church, creeping into teachings, you know, the obviously big ones we all see, the prosperity gospel and that sort of thing.

06:37

But as I've gotten interested and started learning more over the last several years,

06:43

I really just felt a strong passion and a burden to, I don't want to say defend

06:49

God because he sure doesn't need defending and I'm not able to do that, but in the public arena to stand up and present a reasonable, logical defense for the

06:59

Christian faith and why it's true and why it's real and why some of these slightly off target approaches that seem like, oh, well, let's all just let each other believe what we believe.

07:10

It's all good. How they actually have some really dangerous aspects to them. I mean,

07:16

I'm talking about things that risk our salvation. So that's where this book came from. I actually have, it was a year and a half ago.

07:25

I had some friends that were posting, you know, and I think we all see them, right? I'm sure you do as well.

07:30

But there's these memes about, oh, Christmas is pagan and that kind of stuff. And, you know, I just,

07:36

I have a lot of friends that believe different than me. And so I wasn't necessarily alarmed. And then

07:41

I went, wait a second. That guy's a Christian. I was friends with him when I lived back up in Minnesota where I'm from.

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Why would he be posting that? That's really strange, you know? And so I kind of dug in. I thought, all right, I'll bite. Why would a

07:54

Christian say that Christmas is pagan? And that's kind of how I stepped into this other world of Torahism, you know, that I wasn't aware of.

08:02

But, yeah, you're right. It does have, it's part of the many -branching tree that Hebrew Roots Movement is part of.

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And so the problem I had, which you sort of alluded to, was there is no monolithic synod or anything that represents this belief system,

08:20

I should say. So what do I call this? Because not everybody's a Torahist or a

08:26

Hebrew Roots Movement person. So I asked my friend. I call him Bob in the book. That's not his real name. But I asked,

08:31

Bob, what do you call yourself then if you're not a Christian? He said, I'm just a believer, which, you know, that's kind of a meaningless thing to say.

08:40

So as I began digging in and I kind of began sort of aggregating common beliefs,

08:46

I realized it all revolves around the Torah. So that's kind of where I kind of coined the phrase Torahism, which is this kind of belief that faithful followers of Jesus, and I don't even know if they'll call them

09:00

Christians, but faithful followers of Jesus are supposed to be living under the law that God gave to Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai is kind of their point.

09:09

So what are the entailments of that? Again, that doesn't sound bad. The first thing I thought was, oh, that's really cool. I would love to go to a

09:16

Seder. You know, I'd love to experience the Jewish roots of my faith. But as I dug in, I realized it's more than that.

09:22

So they're talking about, you know, obviously observing the Saturday Sabbath, but also the kosher dietary restrictions, keeping the biblical feast, et cetera, which all, again,

09:32

I'm okay with that as long as we're exploring. It's a messianic Jewish position, which is a beautiful thing. But they started saying things like, and by the way,

09:42

Jesus was human. He was not divine. And so when you worship Jesus, you're committing idolatry. And because he was not divine, there's no such thing as the

09:51

Trinity. That was a Roman corruption introduced in the third century. And all of a sudden, whoa, you know, we're in the scary land.

09:59

Yeah, and this is the thing that I think we should let folks understand is this is, as you said, it's not a monolithic system.

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This is what makes it hard because they don't have, here's a book that says what we believe.

10:14

And therefore, you have to talk to many different people in many different groups. I think that I introduced you to a friend of mine,

10:22

Volcab Malone, who took on a similar task like you, but in the Black Hebrew Roots Movement, which has a lot of similarities.

10:28

There's a lot of overlap there. Yeah, there is, yeah. It's not a monolithic group. There's a bunch of fractured groups, but they have some teachings they all hold to, and then others that could be the extreme of saying, yes,

10:42

Jesus is God, to no, he was never God. There's some that will reject the entire New Testament.

10:48

So you have the same thing in what you're calling Torahism. This is a new term. So it's not like people can go search this and find this.

10:57

This is a term you've created or invented for the purpose of giving a label to something that's hard to pinpoint.

11:05

The one thing that they all have in common is the Torah, is the Law of Moses, and therefore, because of that, you've created this term.

11:15

Yeah, and I also want to mention that that term is not in any way intended to be derogatory.

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So calling someone a Torahist is like calling them a Jew or a Muslim or a

11:26

Christian. It simply describes their belief system, because when I started kind of using that term,

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I noticed some of my friends who I had been interacting with were like, dude, don't call me names. And so I had to explain that there's just no simple way to sum up your belief system.

11:41

So I'm mentioning that as your belief system. And of course, they're like, well, it sounds like terrorist.

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I'm like, no, that's not it. So I made a really big point in the book of mentioning that that is not at all derogatory.

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And as I point out in the book, there's a lot of things to respect about the folks who are going through this faith journey.

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And I point that out. I'm not trying to set up any strawman arguments where they got things right and I think are very spot on with Scripture.

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I point that out. And where they taught me a few things, I point that out as well. That's great. I love that.

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So it's a big point in my book. I refer to it several times. My fight is not with people.

12:23

It's with ideas. So I love to keep the conversation there. I love a good, robust debate.

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But I want to make sure we're loving our brothers and sisters. Historically, I've observed over my lifetime, this progression started off, as you mentioned, with the

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Messianic Jewish movement. People would always ask me, are you a Messianic Jew? No, I'm a

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Christian who happens to be Jewish. It's hard for people to understand because so many

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Christians have made a big deal about Jewish people that get saved. They'll say, are you a completed

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Jew? No, I'm a Christian like everybody else. Are you a Messianic Jew?

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The Messianic Jewish movement is very often very charismatic. It's very feeling based, emotional based.

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I remember years and years ago when I used to work at Lucent Technologies, when

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Bell Labs got spun off and we went to Lucent. I remember a security guard that went to a quote -unquote synagogue for worship.

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She was a Gentile. She was so excited. I came to work one day.

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I said hello to her. She's telling me about this festival that she was celebrating at synagogue.

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She's explaining this thing to me. I'm like, I've never heard of this before. She's like, no, no, no, this is what

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Jews worship. I'm like, no, I've never heard of this holiday.

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I've never heard of anything like this. She literally looks at me and says, you're just jealous because I'm more

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Jewish than you. I noticed something at that point.

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There was a pride she had in following the rituals. I'm like, let me see, born of the tribe of Levi, bar mitzvahed at 12 years old, and you're more

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Jewish than me. Ten years of Hebrew school. I'm like, how in your world are you more

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Jewish than me? That is the mindset. I then started seeing that it started morphing from that into Hebrew roots and these other fractions.

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What I noticed with it is, with a lot of people, it starts off as an interest.

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They're interested in Judaism. They're interested in the festivals. They just have a fascination with Judaism.

15:01

Do you have a problem with that? I think that part's beautiful. No, I think that is helpful.

15:08

It's helpful to understand. This is the one thing, when I travel and preach, a lot of people say that they thank me, because I do bring in to the sermons, when necessary, the culture of Judaism, because there are times that that is going to be helpful to understanding the text of Scripture.

15:29

Right. There's a lot of people who, they just don't do that.

15:35

They don't take the time for that, or they don't understand some of the background.

15:42

That is helpful. The rabbinic Judaism that we have today is what the

15:49

Pharisees taught. It hasn't changed in 2 ,000 years. When we look at it, that's different than Old Testament Judaism.

15:59

That's the thing. What most of these people go to is rabbinic Judaism. Here's what

16:07

I end up noticing, though. It starts with, I want to get into festivals.

16:13

I want to enjoy learning about them. It will quickly go to, from there, what

16:26

I end up seeing is, it goes from wanting to be involved in the festivals to wanting to worship on Saturday, because that's what people would do.

16:43

Right. They say it's more, quote, authentic. Correct. It starts as that, but as you point out in your book, then there's others who will say, well, you have to, because this is what the

16:54

Sabbath was. We'll get some Scripture that would disagree with that. So what

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I end up seeing is, I've noticed this trend, and what I've seen in it is a lot of times there becomes a spiritual pride that some, not all, have.

17:11

For some, it's an interest in going back to the roots of Christianity.

17:19

For others, I think what I notice is a pride,

17:24

I know something you don't know. I have something you don't have. Yeah. There's also, tied in with that, the sense of works, that they feel like they can, because they can keep certain rules, that pride kind of creeps up.

17:41

It's almost like they're looking for that. Half of me thinks that part of it could be the sort of warmed -over theology that we get, the pop theology that happens in a lot of churches today.

17:53

Not all of them, but where they start going, hold on, that feels a little squishy. I want something solid

17:58

I can put my hands on. So having these specific lists of works and laws and mitzvot they can keep, that all of a sudden makes them feel like, oh, this is becoming real to me.

18:10

I think that's where a little bit of the deception creeps in. Because they tend to identify their spirituality tied to the

18:19

Jewish rituals and things like that. Right. Go ahead.

18:24

No, go ahead. I was just going to say, it's interesting, if you get deep into the

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Old Testament, seeing it from the revelation of Jesus, and they accept Jesus.

18:35

They think he was a human messiah. But if you look at that, you suddenly see how all of those old festivals and feasts and everything are actually, they were pointing forward to Jesus.

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So it becomes a little bit crazy that they're almost leaving the new beautiful gift we have in the new covenant in Christ to go back to the old way, which was merely a shadow of Christ.

18:58

And this is the thing that's always frustrated me with folks that do this, because we can read the entire book of Galatians, right?

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It's all about not putting yourself under the law. What we see people doing in this movement is exactly what was happening in Paul's day, but a little different in the sense most of the people that are involved in Hebrew roots are

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Gentiles. A Gentile is someone who's not Jewish. And so, you know, in Paul's day, you had

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Jewish people who were saying, oh, you have these Gentiles coming into what we believe, but they got to keep all the laws that we always had to keep.

19:43

So in that sense, it's a little different. But you have Paul writing in Colossians 2, 16,

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Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in question of food or drink or with regard to festival or a new moon or a

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Sabbath. The shadows, there are a shadow of things to come, but a substance belongs to Christ.

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Let no one disqualify you, insisting on the worship of angels, going into detail about visions, puffed up without reason by a sensuous mind.

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So you see in there, he's giving to us some details of what we have in this movement,

20:31

I think. Right, yeah, absolutely. It's hard to understand how they could,

20:37

I mean, like you mentioned Galatians, Galatians 3, where Paul talks about the law was our guardian until Christ came.

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You know, now the faith has come. We're no longer under a guardian. He clearly says that. And the whole book of Hebrews, right?

20:50

It's about we're under a better covenant, a superior high priest, a superior temple.

20:56

I mean, it's so clear that the law and even, I mean,

21:01

I have a lot of discussions about, I think it's Hebrew 8, 13, where it talks about how the old covenant is outdated and becoming obsolete now that the new covenant has arrived.

21:12

And the author of Hebrews also makes this comparison that says, you know, when there's a new priesthood, which

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Jesus was under the, not under the Levitical priesthood, which was required by the law of Moses, but he was a priest in the order of Melchizedek.

21:26

So, and obviously Jesus was from the tribe of Judah. So the point is, we have a new priest with a new priest comes a new law.

21:34

And what I think that for folks, at this point, what I just want folks to understand, if you're just having an interest in Judaism and want to learn festivals, that's not a bad thing.

21:47

Robert and I are both agreeing. That's good to understand the background of the scriptures.

21:54

But when people start to want to put themselves under the law again, this is where we start getting into what

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Paul says in Galatians chapter one, another gospel. Right?

22:07

Yeah, exactly. And also it's talked about in Acts 15, the Jerusalem council. Remember the

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Judaizers at that point got in a big argument with Paul and Barnabas. They have to keep the law of Moses and they have to be circumcised.

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And I have a whole chapter on this, the outcome of that council, which was not only

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Paul and Barnabas, James was there, Peter was there. And it even says the Holy Spirit attested to it that they are not required.

22:33

Gentiles who become to believe in Jesus are not required to keep the law of Moses. They're not required to get circumcised.

22:39

They just gave them four restrictions. So how, how is it possible that we are supposed to still be under the law when the

22:46

Holy Spirit and the apostles clearly said we aren't anymore? Yeah, that's, that's, yeah, that's a big point of contention with the tourists that I've spoken with.

22:58

So, so let's get into the arguments that they would, they'd be making and, and try, cause a lot of your book goes into trying to answer the arguments they make.

23:10

And so after this break, what I want to do is, is go through some of the arguments they make that you, you lay out in your book.

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And by the way, folks, the book is called Torahism by R .L. Saaberg. You could get it at Torahismbook .com.

23:26

That's the, the site for it. So after this break, we want to kind of go through this book and, and dig into this a bit more.

23:35

Ephesians chapter four, verse 25. Therefore laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another for his name's sake.

23:48

What's up, everybody? I'm Jamal Bandy, the host of the prescribed truth podcast, where I seek to distribute the truth that the doctor prescribes to the church and the world today.

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Blessings. Ding dong.

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Jehovah's Witnesses. Ding dong. Mormons. Christian, are you ready to defend the faith when false religions ring your doorbell?

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Do you know what your Muslim and Jewish friends believe? You will if you get Andrew Rappaport's book,

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What Do They Believe? When we witness to people, we need to present the truth. But it is very wise to know what they believe.

25:11

And you will get Andrew Rappaport's book at WhatDoTheyBelieve .com. All right, so welcome back.

25:18

We are with R .L. Sahlberg on the book that he has written called Torahism.

25:24

Torahism, again, is really this idea. It's a new term that he's created. It's an idea of those people who are putting themselves back under the law.

25:34

And this would encapsulate some of the Messianic Jewish movement,

25:41

Hebrew Roots movement, even some of the Black Hebrew Israelites that would fit under this. And each of them have a variety of differences.

25:49

But just like within Black Hebrew Israelites, though they have a wide range of differences, there are some things that you find that there's similarities.

25:58

Robert, what I want to do with you now is go through some of the similarities that the arguments they kind of all make that would put them into this camp.

26:09

And we won't have time to go through all of them. That's why they should go and buy the book, right?

26:15

But let's go through some of the highlights of them and break down what the issues are.

26:22

Let's start with the claims of the Torah. Because your book lays it out as you're examining the claims.

26:31

So you examine the claims of the Torah, which are the first five books. Torah can have multiple meanings, but referring to them as the first five books of Moses.

26:40

But then claims about the commandments, historical claims, claims about God. So let's go through those.

26:47

Let's start with the claims they make about Torah within this movement. Sure. Yeah. So the common beliefs would be that, you know,

26:58

Moshe, Moses said, though Torah is eternal, it will never change. No one can ever add to it or take away from its commandments.

27:05

These are all true. But what they say is that furthermore, there's nothing in the Bible that says we are no longer under the law of Moses.

27:13

And this is the other thing we may need to get into the nuance of. They frequently interchange the two ideas of the law of Moses and the

27:21

Torah. So to your point, one of the first things I do, the first chapter is called What is the Torah?

27:27

So let's get clear on that. One of the things I learned is how differently that term is used. But so the way the way

27:32

I use Torah in the book, and I'll use it here while we're discussing it, Torah means the first five books of the Bible.

27:37

The law of Moses specifically means the the the laws that God gave to Israel as part of the

27:45

Sinai covenant. So those are I say that because it's important to realize the

27:51

Torah is inspired Scripture and we are under its authority. You know, we can't we can't change that.

27:58

I don't try to deny that at all. But the law of Moses and the and the

28:03

Mosaic covenant is the is the actual core of of the discussion with the

28:09

Torah. So they're saying things like, you know, hey, the reason Christians don't keep the Mosaic law today is that their theology was corrupted in the early centuries of the faith.

28:18

Right. So they have this idea of historical corruption. And that now the theory goes now that we're much more literate literate as people and we have much more easy access to scriptures, people's eyes are being opened today and they're suddenly realizing what the what the

28:34

Bible really says. And it says that, you know, the Torah, I guess that when they say that they're meeting, the law of Moses is for all nations and it is for it is for all is forever.

28:47

You know, so all of its commandments will be required forever. And, you know, if I don't know how much you want to get into it, but as you know, since the temple fell, there's a ton of commandments they can't even fulfill right now.

28:59

So the commandments about the sacrifices, the liturgical priesthood, et cetera. But their thought is all of that comes back 100 percent as soon as the new temple gets built in Jerusalem.

29:09

Yeah. For folks that don't know, there's actually a little bit more than 10 commandments. There's 613 commandments in those first five books of Moses and you'd be required to keep them all.

29:24

Now we think of the 10 commandments in Judaism. We'd speak of the commandments for the

29:29

Gentiles, which only be would be those those last six that were called the noetic commandments.

29:35

Those are to the Gentiles. It's those last six of the 10 commandments. That's what they would say that Gentiles would have to keep.

29:42

But one of the things I really liked is you and I talked and as I got was working through the book.

29:48

I really appreciate something that you had said that I want to make sure that folks listening that you pick this up.

29:56

What you did, Robert, was to examine what they believe, to not discredit them, to not misrepresent them.

30:04

This is essential. This is what I did in my book. What do they believe? I wanted to make sure that I'm accurate in explaining what it is they believe.

30:12

Right. And this is an important thing that not enough people do. So I want to highlight that first off. But it's also important.

30:21

And you did this in the very first chapter and dealing with these kind of arguments against them, because the first two chapters really are trying to define the terminology.

30:33

And I should point out for folks, you're using terminology in the book and sometimes here, referring to Jesus as Yeshua.

30:43

This is out of respect to the people who are in this movement who would think that you have to use a

30:51

Hebrew name for someone that was given probably a Greek name.

30:58

So, you know, that's exactly right. I tried to be I tried to use a lot of Jewish terminology.

31:03

It's it's what you'll encounter. This book is intended to be a resource for if you're talking to people.

31:09

And again, it's not about insulting any person. It's about correcting the ideas that are wrong.

31:15

And so if we want to call him Yeshua, his Hebrew name or Jesus, it doesn't matter. We're talking about the same person, you know, the

31:21

Mashiach or the Messiah. So I used a lot of that intentionally and throughout the book.

31:27

So the book kind of is a little bit of an extended conversation. So I include lots and lots of actual quotes from my friends who believe this, this

31:36

Torahism approach because I did not want to misrepresent their position. So now you say literally this is what they say.

31:43

And, you know, and I actually ran it by many of them to say, do I have this right? Is this what you think? Before I put it in the book.

31:50

Yeah. And one of the things is, is that for folks to understand is that you kind of have to take it from what they say, because there isn't anything written down on this.

32:00

Right. There's very few. Yeah. There's no luminaries in this area that you would look to.

32:06

And there are also no large scale like academic quality books.

32:11

There's a bunch of little free e -books on Amazon kind of thing and a bunch of Web sites.

32:16

Yeah. And a bunch of bunch of podcasts. But yeah, you're right. But there's but there's no one that stands up as an authority.

32:22

This is what we all hold to. And that that makes it hard. And that's why I think the first thing you did in in answering these claims was give definitions.

32:31

And this is important because we don't have the right terms. Then if we're if we could be talking past each other, if our terminology is different.

32:41

Exactly. You take the time to explain what you mean by the terms that you're you end up using.

32:48

Now, they end up trying to say, well, you know, the law is not really abolished. We should be keeping it.

32:56

How do we respond to that? Yeah, that's a popular one. And specifically that the idea from Matthew 517.

33:03

Do not think I've come to abolish the law or the prophets. I've not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.

33:09

So that's a big a big verse that you'll hear if you're talking with someone of this belief system. I mean, that's yes.

33:16

It's exhibit a really a lot of times they'll even start there. So what's interesting about this is a they're right that Jesus didn't come to abolish the law.

33:25

I mean, it's pretty clear from Matthew 17, but the question then becomes, what does it mean to fulfill the law?

33:32

And so at that point, we you know, I don't know if we want to get into it here, but there's a lot. There's the idea of the biblical covenants, you know, the the conditional and unconditional covenants, etc.

33:42

So what the point I'm making here is that when Jesus says I have come to fulfill the law, what does that look like?

33:48

That that means that he came to be the sacrifice, the once and for all sacrifice that the law was pointing to, that all the animal sacrifices and all that blood in the

33:59

Old Testament that was required of Israel was was pointing to the blood of Christ.

34:05

You know, the unblemished lamb of God. I mean, that's what that's what John calls him. You know, it's so clear when you follow that trajectory through the

34:13

Bible that Jesus, you know, this is the new covenant in my blood, he says.

34:19

So when we say he came to fulfill the law, what we mean is he fulfilled, he came to complete the law is the right way to take that.

34:29

So, in other words, the law wasn't done away with. It was brought to fruition, brought to completion in Jesus.

34:36

He carried out what the law demanded. And in doing that, this is what's really interesting, is that in doing that, he became the final sacrifice.

34:45

This is clearly what the New Testament teaches. Right. So. Well, I then if we if we bring back the temple, this is a question

34:53

I'll often ask to them. If we bring back the temple, are we bringing back animal sacrifices at that time?

34:58

And they'll say, yes, we're bringing it all back. And as a matter of fact, I reached out to some Jewish groups that I'm friends with.

35:03

And they said, yeah, we believe everything comes back. Not a problem. If you're from a

35:08

Jewish perspective, that's logically coherent. But if you are a Torah is who happens to believe that the temple is coming back and the sacrifices are coming back.

35:18

And at the same time, you believe Jesus died for your sins. What was the point of him dying?

35:24

If now we have to have animal sacrifices for our sins again, you know what I mean? That is the exact point that Paul makes in Galatians, chapter two, verses twenty, twenty one.

35:34

That the law, if if you can be saved by the law, then Christ's death is in vain.

35:39

Exactly. Yeah. So so let's let's throw some because I want to throw some out there because this is an argument you make in the book that to be honest, you made an argument that I haven't heard anyone else but me make.

35:51

And so whenever I see someone makes an argument, I'm just like, oh, yeah. OK, I'm not alone in this thinking.

35:57

OK, good. That sounds like I won't be alone. Acts chapter 10. Peter has a vision.

36:04

Oh, yes. This is commonly brought up. They'll say, OK, it says he has this vision of the animals.

36:14

And, you know, for folks who don't may not remember the account, he put

36:19

Peter's up there. He's he's about to be sent to the Gentiles before he knows that he's praying.

36:26

He's here's the voice of God say, rise, Peter, kill and eat.

36:32

And Peter says, by no means, for I've never eaten anything common or unclean.

36:39

This is verse 15 now. And the voice came to him again a second time. What God made clean, do not call common.

36:48

And then right after this, because it says in verse 17, while Peter was inwardly perplexed as to what the vision that he had seen might mean, behold, men came to him sent by Cornelius, having inquired inquiry from Simon's house, stood at the gate.

37:08

So this is they're calling him to go to Gentiles. So the direct reference to this vision is going to Gentiles.

37:18

Now, this vision is often brought up because they're saying that this is a reference to him going to Gentiles.

37:28

It had nothing to do with food. And yeah, they say that they say the food is merely used symbolically in that vision.

37:36

Correct. Represent the acceptance of the Gentiles. Right. Now, we can agree with that, right? Yeah. OK, but you make a point.

37:44

What what is that vision? I mean, does it talk to the issue of food? Well, yeah,

37:51

I mean, the point that I'm making is that, yes, he could have used that as an allegory, but but God wouldn't use a false allegory.

37:59

So he would not tell Peter to eat. So in the vision, the sheet comes down and it's all those animals you're not supposed to kill and eat.

38:07

God wouldn't use a false allegory by saying kill and eat these animals that are unpure. But I don't really mean that specifically.

38:14

I just mean talk to the you know, the Gentiles are coming in, you know. And I think it's important to understand that this was so radical at that time, especially for Peter, who is, you know, a proud

38:25

Jew. And he was you know, so this was repeated three different times in front of Peter. And then

38:31

Peter goes and tells the whole story again to Cornelius. So we're actually the author of Acts.

38:36

Luke is telling us quite a few times about this. I mean, the repetition means something there. God was teaching

38:41

Peter that things have changed. You know, the food that was once considered unclean can now be eaten. And the people that were considered unclean, you know, the

38:50

Gentiles can now be accepted. I think I think both are true. And God would not use a false allegory to teach a truth.

38:57

That's right. And because the point that is so interesting with this is, okay, let's agree that this is an illustration of something, that this is an allegory, that this is a vision.

39:10

I can agree with that. It's the goal of the vision is go to the

39:15

Gentiles. We can agree with that. Right. But the question that I'd always challenge people,

39:21

I was in Utah at a Mormon. We were reaching out to Mormons.

39:27

And I ran into a young man who coming out of, I forget if he came,

39:32

I think he came out of Mormonism, but got into Hebrew roots. And we were discussing this.

39:40

And I said, but what do you do with this? He's saying that these foods are now clean.

39:46

And he goes, but no, that's just, that's a vision saying that he can go to the Gentiles. And this was a question that you ended up asking in the book is, what then is the vision about?

39:57

Because if the reality is not that the food that was once unclean is now called clean, then the analogy breaks down.

40:12

Right. Yeah, exactly. The only way this makes sense that for a vision of Peter going to the

40:19

Gentiles, is if Peter knows that the food that was once called unclean is now clean.

40:26

Right. Yeah. And the blood of Christ cleaned all of that. It made the food clean.

40:33

It made the Gentiles clean. I mean, that's the whole point of the vision. It's not like God's like, hey, you know, that food

40:40

I told you to eat in the vision, that's not really clean. So don't really kill and eat that. That was just, I was just using that as an example.

40:46

I mean, we see nothing like that from God anywhere else in Scripture. So that's not what he's doing here either.

40:52

Yeah. And this is the point that I think where this breaks down and takes just a little bit of critical thinking, take a step back and go, okay, wait, then what would be the point of the illustration?

41:05

If the food is still unclean, what's the point of the illustration?

41:12

And it immediately breaks down. Exactly. Yeah. Okay, let's talk about the claims of commandments.

41:19

And folks, again, we're talking about the book, Torahism. You can get it at torahismbook .com.

41:25

For folks that maybe don't know how to spell Torahism, T -O -R -A -H -I -S -M book .com.

41:36

So you want to get a hold of this, because I really don't know too many people who don't know somebody who is getting caught up in or is in Torahism.

41:48

Now remember, this is a generic term for Hebrew roots, Messianic Jewish movement, all kinds of things.

41:56

So just be aware of that. So what are the claims they make about the commandments, and then what are some of the answers we have for them?

42:04

I know we already addressed the avoiding of clean food. Right, yeah.

42:09

So, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. There's obviously the feasts, the Sabbath. There's unclean food. We just talked about that.

42:15

I think a big area, probably the longest chapter in the book, is this whole idea of the temple and the things that surround the temple.

42:22

So the priests, the sacrifice, the worship, and that sort of thing. Again, they want to go back to, they believe we need to go back to what the law of Moses says about all of those things.

42:38

And so I kind of break them down as like little subchapters. But they're basically calling for a return to when the new temple is built.

42:45

Because, again, this is the part I told you, but 150, I think I counted roughly, of those mitzvot cannot even literally be fulfilled today.

42:54

So it's technically impossible for anyone to live a truly Torah -observant lifestyle since AD 70 when the temple was destroyed.

43:02

But their point here is that, my point here, I guess, in responding to them. So I'm trying to show them through all of these temple items, so through the priests.

43:13

And we talked through, I mentioned a little bit earlier, we talked through Melchizedek and what did Christ represent and what does the book of Hebrews say about Jesus being a superior high priest.

43:23

We talk about sacrifices, which we just talked about a second ago, where it's like, well, are sacrifices necessary?

43:30

And I go through an idea of how the tabernacle was set out, which was super interesting, that the way that they would set up their camp, the

43:39

Israelites, out in the desert in Old Testament times, back in antiquity, God gave them very specific instructions.

43:45

I think it's in Numbers about you put the tabernacle in the middle and the tents of all the tribes, the 12 tribes are surrounding that tabernacle.

43:55

And then they had very specific rules about which tribes go where, et cetera, et cetera.

44:01

But all this did was all of these rules really set up a sort of a hierarchy or a closeness of proximity,

44:11

I guess, effect to holiness. So if you were outside of the Israelite camp, you were considered in the unholy place, so to speak.

44:18

If you got into the Israelite camp, so you're a member of the nation of Israel, you're in a little bit holier place.

44:24

If you walk into the courtyard of the tabernacle, you're in a little bit more holy place, you know, and then the priests could enter the tabernacle.

44:32

But, of course, inside the tabernacle is the Holy of Holies, where only one priest could go only once a year. So you really get this sense of the people being held off at sort of a distance.

44:44

And it's so clear in a lot of the New Testament passages when Jesus died and the veil in the temple was torn down, it granted us access directly to God's presence.

44:55

So the temple of the New Testament is the people of God. God lives in us collectively as the body of Christ, whereas in the old temple— for example, think of Jesus talking to the

45:08

Samaritan woman, and she says, you know, you worship the Jews in Israel or in Jerusalem, and we worship them on this mountain here, which is right.

45:17

And Jesus says, you know, truly I tell you, there'll come a day when you're going to worship God in neither place, but you're going to worship him in spirit and in truth.

45:24

And that was him talking about this big, huge change that was coming with the new covenant. And this is essential for folks to understand the difference of what goes on here, because,

45:38

I mean, we already mentioned Galatians, right? I mean, this is—the whole idea they have is to ultimately really replace the biblical gospel with a man -made gospel of human effort.

45:51

This is why it's dangerous. Right. They're going back under the wall. Right. So, yeah, so for example, it's very clear that we no longer need the

46:02

Levitical priests to mediate between us and God, because Jesus is now our high priest. Yeshua is now our high priest.

46:08

If you want to go back to having that mediation through the Levitical priesthood, that's a step backwards, you know?

46:15

And that kind of undoes or spits in the face— you know, sorry to be so strong about it— but of what

46:20

Jesus did, his sacrifice, you know what I mean? And he opened the way to God for us. So his blood was shed, and there was a purpose for that.

46:29

It tells us that blood sacrifices are no longer required. It specifically says that in Hebrews, because Yeshua sacrificed himself for us once for all.

46:38

I think that's Hebrews 10 .10. So this leaves Torahism in a dilemma, you know?

46:43

If the blood sacrifices for sin commanded by the law of Moses are to be renewed, as Torahism claims, then what was

46:51

Yeshua's sacrifice for? Was it a meaningless effort, a symbolic gesture? You know what

46:56

I mean? On the other hand, if the sacrifices— if they're going to admit, and I've had a few Torahists admit they've got problems with this, but if they say, okay, fine, then the sacrifices will not be renewed when the temple's rebuilt.

47:10

Well, then they're saying the law of Moses is no longer binding, because the law of Moses clearly requires sacrifice.

47:15

So, you know, they can't really have it both ways, and this chapter about the temple and the priests and everything, I think it really drives that point home from that perspective.

47:24

Yeah, and then we have historical claims that they try to make about this, and you address those claims about— and you've already mentioned this a little bit— about the fact that Christianity was kind of corrupted.

47:37

Some will say that the Trinity is a Roman thing, that Christmas and Easter are pagan holidays.

47:44

And, by the way, I'll put it this way, for a lot of people, they just have to understand that Christmas and Easter are—they're nostalgic, okay?

47:56

People have a nostalgia with these holidays that they grew up in.

48:02

When I became a Christian, I'd go to church and, you know, when

48:08

I got married, people would come over to my house around Christmas time, people would be like, where's your Christmas tree?

48:15

I don't have one. I don't care to have one. Because it's meaningless to me. I have no traditions with a

48:23

Christmas tree. And I'd have all these Christians telling me, well, you need to get a Christmas tree. And my answer to them was always, if you can give me one reason why

48:31

I need a Christmas tree, other than the fact that you grew up with one, I'll get it.

48:38

Because you like sweeping up pine needles. But you see, the reality is, for many people, they hold to those holidays more— not because of a religious or spiritual reason, but because of a nostalgic reason.

48:55

So people have to be realistic with that and understand that. So sometimes people hold on to it, and they're fighting against a tourist because of something that's personal to them.

49:07

The arguments that the tourists may argue, that these are pagan holidays, we can agree to that.

49:14

Yeah. Well, what I explained to them was— because they'll say, look, Christmas and Easter, they're not in the

49:20

Bible. They're man -made holidays. And I'm like, yeah, so? They're man -made holidays set to do what?

49:28

To remind us of the birth of Christ, to remind us of the sacrifice of Christ at resurrection on Easter.

49:35

It's the same thing that the Bible's full of. These remembrances, these festivals, these feasts, remembering—that's what the

49:43

Psalms are about, remembering what God did for us. And furthermore, Hanukkah is not prescribed in the

49:50

Torah either. But you can, you know, you can— and it's a man -made holiday. It's not a divine feast.

49:57

And I have no problem with that, by the way. I have no problem with people separating. That's kind of a cool story behind it anyway. But the point is, just because it's man -made doesn't mean it's necessarily pagan.

50:07

The question is, are we worshiping pagan gods? Are we allowing syncretism to happen within our faith?

50:14

Or are we merely incorporating social, like you said, traditions or customs? There's no

50:21

Christmas tree in the Bible. There's no theological case for having a Christmas tree. But if you like them, there's nothing wrong with having it either, as long as you're not bowing down and worshiping it, you know.

50:30

And that's what they'll often claim that you're doing. You set it up in your house, and it's like, people aren't doing that.

50:36

I mean— So what I see is— this is what I end up seeing, because as you pointed out,

50:45

Hanukkah, that's not— they'll go, oh, but that's in the Bible. Yeah, there's one reference that you can maybe argue is there.

50:52

Yeah, John 10, 22, I think. Or 16, yeah. That's where they mentioned that Jesus was in town for the celebration.

50:58

A salvation of lights. But, you know, I don't think that that's an argument you can realistically make.

51:06

That's the thing. It's just—it doesn't really work.

51:12

And so, you know, my argument would be, okay, you need to decide, you know, if you're going to have an argument, you've got to be consistent with it.

51:25

And this is the thing I find, is that they're just not consistent with it. Right. And, you know, this is where, when the historical claims that they make, okay, we can agree.

51:38

Again, we can agree with some things. People have to realize that not everything they're going to argue is completely wrong.

51:44

Yeah, exactly, exactly. They have some things they're going to say that are right, and that's the issue, actually.

51:52

I mean, that's where we get into an issue, because they're going to use those things that they can agree on.

52:00

And this is basically what you see. You'll see this with any cult. They lack integrity in language.

52:07

And so they'll take something that is true, and, okay, let's get you to believe this, and now that you believe in that, we'll push it a little further, push it a little further.

52:18

It's a game that gets played. So this ends up, though, as we've talked about, this ends up affecting their views of God and salvation, and the last section of your book deals with that.

52:31

Let's discuss that. Yeah, and if I could, I mean, that comment you made is so powerful, because it's not an outright opposition to what most

52:40

Christians believe, and there's not this big, egregious thing at first. But as any marksman can tell you, if the barrel of your gun's off by a fraction of an inch while you're aiming, your bullet's going to miss your intended target downrange by several feet or a long shot, you know?

52:55

And I think that's what happens with the theology of tourism. They get a couple little things wrong, and they follow that natural trajectory, and next thing you know, you work it out to its logical end, and they're off by a mile.

53:04

And that's where we get to in the end of the book. Now all of a sudden they're saying, well, wait a second, Jesus was, he wasn't divine.

53:11

That's a Roman corruption, you know? Yeah, well, let me get into that, because for folks who may not recognize me,

53:19

I've spent, unfortunately, a lot of my life studying cults and false religions, so I start to say, how do they get into this?

53:27

Nobody wakes up one day, no one wakes up and goes, you know, today I feel like I want to be a heretic, right?

53:34

No one makes that as their plan. It's not like, you know, I'm going to put myself on a trajectory. Five years from now, I want to be tied to false teaching.

53:42

I want to be a heretic. That doesn't happen. But what does happen, and I don't care if flat earthers, same thing.

53:51

Tourists, same thing. You can name any cultist, same thing. The way that people get into this is, it starts off with, in this case with Torahism, it starts off with a good desire to want to know the

54:05

Bible better, to want to know Judaism, because that is the religion, the belief system, that Jesus would have been under.

54:14

You want to understand those things. All of that is a good thing. But, you know, with flat earthers,

54:21

I find most of them get in, they're trying to defend against flat earth. That's how they start out. They want to show how ridiculous it is.

54:29

But ultimately what ends up happening with many of these is as they start listening to just one side of an argument, they're now explaining it to others.

54:38

As they explain it to others, people start challenging it, and the person who is not believing it yet is just giving the defense answers that they've been reading.

54:51

And they're defending the system just to be a balance to explain the other point of view. But in that process, what they're doing is they're convincing themselves that it's right.

55:02

Oh yeah, interesting, yeah. Without knowing it, what they end up doing is they're now believing, very slowly, the system.

55:09

And they're no longer looking at the challenges against it because they think they got the answers now.

55:14

And now the system is believed. Once it's believed, now it's defended. And everybody else is attacking it.

55:22

And therefore, you have the victim status of I've got to defend this because this is right.

55:28

That is how this process happens. And tourists are no different.

55:36

It's a slow progression of trying to defend against what you think would be arguments against something.

55:43

And now you're believing it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. That's exactly what I experienced talking with the folks that I did.

55:50

And you know what, that's actually the reason that was the driver behind this book. Because as I mentioned earlier,

55:56

I kind of jumped in on a Facebook comment. Well, as I jumped in, because we had kind of come from a place of knowing each other, the conversation got pretty deep pretty fast and ended up being kind of the most rare of all literary forms.

56:11

It was a productive Facebook argument. Wait, what? I must have heard that wrong.

56:16

Can you say that again? A productive what? So as we got into it, other people on each of our friend lists started piling in.

56:26

And it became this very large social conversation. And suddenly I'm getting messages through Facebook Messenger.

56:33

Hey, you don't know me, but I know these guys. Thank you so much for sticking up for the Christian point of view.

56:38

Because we don't understand when or how this happened. But suddenly they're being very strange.

56:44

And even their family members would reach out and friends. Hey, our kids play together. Their kids are starting to tell our kids weird stuff.

56:52

And we didn't know what to do. And we didn't even, you know, it came out. And these are people that were in their daily lives and not seeing it.

56:59

So you're right. It wasn't some one day I'm deciding this, but it was a progressive thing. And suddenly everyone's going, whoa, what happened?

57:05

Well, not only is it a progressive thing, but they're actually speaking a different language. I mean, we would speak

57:11

Christianese. They're starting to speak rabbinic Judaism. Yeah.

57:17

Oh, yeah. And that caught me a lot. Yeah. And so all of a sudden the language changes. You know, there's, but you don't, most people don't see that slow progression until it takes hold.

57:29

That's probably why I noticed it. I hadn't talked to them in several years. And so it just popped up in my feed. And I was like, whoa, they didn't used to be like that.

57:36

You know? Yeah. It was obvious by the time I got involved. Yeah. But for those who are slowly seeing it, it wasn't obvious.

57:43

Right. So, yeah, it seems strange to you and I, because there are certain lines that how can you possibly cross that without noticing?

57:51

How did you possibly come to decide that Jesus was not divine, that he was merely a human being?

57:58

How, where would you possibly come up with that? And so you imagine the slow incremental journey they must have been on to not even notice they crossed that.

58:05

And now, matter of fact, the wife, who's an awesome, super talented singer, had put out worship

58:12

CDs worshiping Jesus. And now years later, she's denying his divinity and saying he should not be worshiped.

58:18

Okay. So say is, hey, Jesus said, I am the gate. So why do you stop and worship the gate? Why don't you go on and worship the father?

58:25

Is there kind of their argument? Yeah. So let's get into the views, because that's the last part of your book. And why we have such an issue was concerned with it, because of the fact that they end up having a different God, a different salvation.

58:41

Right. Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. They do actually. Now, this is interesting because I would say this is a rough guess.

58:48

50 % of the people I talk to, who I believe subscribe to this Torahism mindset or worldview, wouldn't quite go so far to say that that faith doesn't save us.

59:00

But the other half would say, oh, no, it's all about works. You know, Jesus redeemed us.

59:06

But salvation comes from keeping the Torah. That's what they'll say, which is a crazy statement.

59:12

So when I started addressing this, I actually kind of began with the Torah. I said,

59:18

OK, so answer me this. According to the Torah, who has all authority in heaven?

59:24

Who has no beginning or end according to the Torah? Yahweh, or they call him Hashem. Whose words represent the foundation of life?

59:33

Through whom were all things made? And I'm finding these things, obviously, as you know, I'm sure from New Testament scriptures.

59:38

Whose name is I Am? Who's able to inaugurate God's covenants? All these kinds of things. And they're constantly saying the answer, of course, is

59:45

Yahweh, is God. But the New Testament, all up and down, is saying that Jesus did all these things.

59:52

Jesus fulfilled God's promises. Jesus has the authority to offer the full forgiveness of sins.

59:58

The beginning of John says, through Jesus, all things were made. So Jesus is clearly claiming divinity.

01:00:06

As a matter of fact, everything falls apart, and he becomes a goofball spouting nonsense if you take away his divinity and just look at the words that he said.

01:00:15

And so I kind of go through that. I mean, this in particular is not really, in my mind, new territory, because there's been a lot of, you know, this is the type of thing you might argue with atheists or something about.

01:00:26

But the scriptural evidence is just overwhelming. You know, Jesus' self -identity, how he reveals himself, how he says, you know, follow me.

01:00:35

He doesn't, all the other rabbis would say, you need to follow God, you need to keep the Torah, et cetera. Jesus says, leave everything you have and follow me.

01:00:41

You know, who says that unless, like C .S. Lewis says, you're either a madman or a lunatic or you're the

01:00:47

Lord. You're who you say you are, you know. Liar, lunatic, or Lord. That's it, yeah. You know, here's the thing,

01:00:53

Robert. It's hard for us in one hour to encapsulate everything in this book. This is a book, folks,

01:01:01

I highly recommend you get. Even if you don't have anybody in your life right now that is a

01:01:09

Torahist, you will. And so, yeah, you want to get this book now.

01:01:15

So when your friends start moving this way, when you start hearing this stuff, you could address it before they're believing it, before they give in to it.

01:01:26

So I want to recommend you get the book, Torahism by R .L. Sahlberg, and the place to get it, you can get it on Amazon or you could go to his website at torahismbook .com.

01:01:39

You want to get a copy. In fact, you want to probably get one copy for yourself and buy a second copy up front because you're going to find someone that needs that copy.

01:01:51

You're going to find someone you know in your life that needs one. I'm actually going to be ordering a second copy for a family member that is interested in this way.

01:02:00

Saw it in my house and they were like, I think I need to read that. Yeah, I think so too. So I recommend you getting two copies of this, one for yourself and one to give away.

01:02:12

When you give it away, you'll just have to order another one. But there is no other resource on these issues.

01:02:20

I'm going to tell you, Robert, what I'd like to do is I want to hold you over for a longer time on a different podcast.

01:02:28

I'd like to get more time with you. I want to get about two hours. I want to bring you into Apologetics Live. We do that on Thursday nights.

01:02:35

It's a live show, Thursday nights, 8 to 10, Eastern Time. For folks who are listening, you can always just go to ApologeticsLive .com.

01:02:44

It gives you all the details of what that show is going to be that week. If we have guest apologists come in, that's listed at that website,

01:02:53

ApologeticsLive .com. I'll tell you why I want to do it. Not only so we can get into more detail in this book because we just touched the surface of it, but also so that we can open it up to questions.

01:03:06

People who have challenges, I know that there's a lot of people who have questions about these issues.

01:03:13

I want to be able to give an opportunity where they can actually ask you and we can have more interaction. That'd be fabulous.

01:03:18

We can get into the book more, but also get to challenges. You and I can set that up. We'll do that either this

01:03:27

Thursday of when this drops or shortly after, but just go to ApologeticsLive .com

01:03:33

and you'll see the topic will be Tourism, Answering Hebrew Roots and Other Movements, will probably be what we'll call it, which will be similar to the title of this podcast.

01:03:45

Let me ask you before we sign out, is there anything else that you would like to share, anything else you really wanted to mention?

01:03:53

The only thing I would really mention about the book and the whole approach to talking to people with this belief system is kind of what

01:04:00

I mentioned at the outset. The book wasn't about winning an argument. Its goal wasn't to argue the

01:04:08

Torahist into agreement with Christianity. I don't even think it's possible to argue someone. I mean, it's the Holy Spirit's job.

01:04:13

But my intent with this book, and I think in our interactions with these, and these are people that often, they're family members, they're friends, they're people that we love.

01:04:22

My intention was let's clear away some untruths, some errors, maybe some misconceptions, in an attempt to really just reveal

01:04:28

God and His word more clearly to our Torahist friends. I don't want to make our theological differences a test of fellowship, like if we don't believe the same thing,

01:04:38

I'm rejecting you from my life kind of thing. But we need to stand up for the truth of the word. But again, our fight is not with people, it's with ideas.

01:04:46

So I would just encourage anybody, when you're talking to anyone of different beliefs, to just have one ear to God while you talk to them, and the other ear kind of listening to what they're telling you, rather than, you know, don't buy my book and beat them over the head with it.

01:05:00

Yeah. And not physically beat them over the head. It's not that heavy of a book, so it's not really going to do much damage if you beat them over the head with it.

01:05:09

Hey, listen, after this next commercial, since I know you don't listen regularly to The Wrap Report, you don't know what's coming, so I want to play a game right after this break.

01:05:21

Can you answer the following questions for your children or for the person to whom you are witnessing?

01:05:27

Number one, is the New Testament reliable? Two, can you explain the Trinity to me?

01:05:33

Three, how is Jesus both God and man? And a slew of other questions you will be able to answer if you get

01:05:40

Andrew Rappaport's new book, What Do We Believe? It will help you a ton.

01:05:46

Get your copy at whatdowebelievebook .com. Whatdowebelievebook .com.

01:05:51

All right, thank you for that, Todd. Now, let's play a game. Most people know that we should be evangelizing, but most people also know that it is hard to get from the natural world to the spiritual world.

01:06:04

Once it's in the spiritual realm, people are okay with evangelizing, but it's hard to make that transition. And thus, we have a game.

01:06:11

It's time now to start the spiritual transition game.

01:06:18

All right, so, Robert, this is how we play this game. No pressure on you, it's all on me, so you can relax.

01:06:24

You're going to give me something, an object, whatever, a topic, whatever it is, and I have to take it from whatever you give me to the gospel.

01:06:33

Now, we make this into a game. We recommend people playing it when they're in small groups, youth groups, whatever.

01:06:38

But basically what you do is just call someone out, give them a topic, you know, Robert, door, gospel, go, you know.

01:06:46

Now, if you want to be easier with people, just get them into a spiritual conversation so it doesn't have to specifically be gospel.

01:06:52

But by playing the game, by doing it regularly, you end up realizing you do not need to wait for God to open doors and opportunities.

01:07:01

You can make them. You just have to practice how to make any conversation transition.

01:07:08

Figure a way to take whatever's said and get it to the gospel. So, this part has no editing.

01:07:14

I don't cut out the, you know, long, long periods of silence when I'm stuck or where I go, wait a minute, what?

01:07:21

No, if I stumble, I stumble. And that happens when you have conversations with people and you're trying to do a transition.

01:07:28

So, Robert, you're going to give me something, and I have to get to the gospel. So go for it. How about the way that technology is changing our modern lives?

01:07:38

The way technology is changing our modern lives. You might be referring to the fact that before we started recording, you and I had some problems.

01:07:47

We both had to reboot our computers. And then 15 minutes into this recording, we had to stop and I had to reboot some more things, right?

01:07:58

Technology is a wonderful thing when it works, isn't it? Yeah. When it doesn't, it's frustrating, isn't it?

01:08:05

No kidding. I almost was going to drive out to New Jersey. Yeah, no one wants to drive to New Jersey.

01:08:11

It's just, yeah, people want to get out of New Jersey. So, hence,

01:08:17

I'm moving. But, you know, technology has affected us in ways that many people don't think about.

01:08:24

You know, I was talking with someone earlier about this this past week because when we move, we're going to go to a new town.

01:08:32

And as we're going to the new area, people are telling us how to get around by, oh, yeah, take this road or that road or go by here.

01:08:39

We have no idea where anything is. Because every time we're going to, you know, check out houses, to look at a house, we're using this thing called a

01:08:47

GPS. We're not looking at a map anymore. People don't look at maps.

01:08:54

And what it actually, it's kind of interesting. I ended up realizing that we think we have more knowledge and we have more available to us.

01:09:03

But because we rely on that technology, relying on that actually gets us to be dumb.

01:09:10

I mean, because I don't know anything around the area where had I, you know, years ago before GPS, I would have had a map.

01:09:18

Actually, in the process of moving, I had maps of the entire U .S. that I've kept all these years.

01:09:24

I haven't opened them in over 15 years. So I finally tossed them because I realized I rely on the

01:09:29

GPS. But here's the reality. I'm sure you've experienced this. You're relying on the

01:09:35

GPS. You punch in the coordinates. I remember I was going to speak at a church in New York City, and I put in the address.

01:09:43

But for some reason, the street was right. Everything was right except for one thing. The number

01:09:48

I put in, the GPS had on the wrong side of town. I was 20 minutes because that road was really long, 20 minutes.

01:09:57

So when I got to the location and I thought I was good because I was safe, I had time to be there. I then realized there's no church around here.

01:10:05

When I called the church and I said where I was, they were like, you're on the wrong side of town. You got a long hike.

01:10:11

I went from being early to being late. Not good when you're the speaker. I relied on the technology.

01:10:19

I didn't do the study ahead of time. I didn't question could the technology lead me astray.

01:10:24

Well, it did. GPSes lead people in the wrong directions all the time. What do we do?

01:10:30

We're relying on that. We're trusting that and just assuming blindly often that it's going to be right.

01:10:36

Now, sometimes it is, and because of that, we trust it sometimes too much. That's the same thing that I think we have with our own nature, our heart.

01:10:45

People trust their heart. They trust that their heart wouldn't lead them astray, that they're not going to— because if they feel like this is the right thing, then they believe it is the right thing.

01:10:59

And yet, our heart can deceive us. Our heart could tell us that things are okay when they really aren't.

01:11:07

Our heart can tell us that we're a good person and we deserve to go to heaven because we're so good.

01:11:14

And yet, we ignore the fact that we lie, we steal, we break

01:11:20

God's law. We would be guilty in his sight and be a criminal because we've broken the law of an infinite holy

01:11:27

God. And because of that, we would have an infinite consequence. We would end up having to suffer for all eternity.

01:11:33

But God made a way of escape that God himself came to earth, became a man to set us free, that we did the crimes.

01:11:40

We deserve the punishment. God took that upon himself so that we could be set free and have eternal life.

01:11:48

So that's how I'd get from how technology affects us to the gospel.

01:11:54

Well played, sir. I'll call you a winner. So with that,

01:12:00

I really appreciate you coming on, and I do appreciate that you had someone reach out to me.

01:12:08

I get a lot of offers. I actually have three other books sitting on my desk that I have to review and write up.

01:12:17

They asked me if I would write up a recommendation for it and then come on to the show.

01:12:23

Your book really intrigued me. As I said, I didn't think that it was what it was.

01:12:30

I was very pleasantly surprised. Your heart almost led you astray about my book. Yes, yes, my heart almost did.

01:12:38

Well played, sir. Thank you so much. Yeah, I really appreciate your interest in it, though.

01:12:44

That's great. Thank you for having me on, man. Every time we've chatted, I've learned something. So anytime, I would love to continue the conversation.

01:12:50

Oh, yeah, I think we should, even if it's not on air. But folks, the book is

01:12:56

Torahism by R .L. Salzberg. You can get it on Amazon or go to Torahismbook .com.

01:13:02

Like I said, get one, get two, get a case. But you will have someone in your life that needs the information in this book.

01:13:10

It is the only book that I know of on the topic of Torahism, answering

01:13:18

Hebrew roots and Messianic Jewish movement and all these others. So I strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to get a copy of it.

01:13:27

If it's just too hard to spell Torahism book, just go to the show notes. There's a link there in the show notes for you to just click on and order the book today.

01:13:37

All right. So we'll have you on to Apologetics Live very soon.

01:13:43

And so we could do a longer time and get into more detail of this.

01:13:48

But I really appreciate you taking the time to investigate this, to study this out, because this is a needed resource for the

01:13:57

Christian community, because unfortunately way too many people are struggling with the issue here.

01:14:05

So I appreciate what you've done. I really want to thank you. Yeah, thanks so much, Andrew. God bless you.

01:14:10

I appreciate it. Looking forward to chatting again. All right. So next week, folks, on The Wrap Report, I'll be back.

01:14:18

No more interviews for a little while. Bud and I are going to be dealing with a series. It's the first time, actually, we're going to do a series.

01:14:25

We are going to address the question, what is the church? It'll be a two-, three -part series, but it's definitely going to be more than one.

01:14:34

That I'm sure of. Just way too much information. We're going to be discussing things from the content of my book.

01:14:41

What do we believe in the chapter that I have in there, and what is the church? Because there's a lot of confusion on what the church is, and there's a lot that we end up seeing that people get into fights over, over different views of church.

01:14:54

And so we want to address some of those things, go through, give you a historical view of what is the church.

01:15:00

So you want to make sure to tune in next week for that. And until next week, remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

01:15:10

And you know what, Robert? Yes, sir? That's a wrap. This podcast is part of the

01:15:17

Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.