Category: Teachings

Audio and video messages

Paganism in Christianity

It really boils down to a binary choice: Are we going to worship the God of the Bible or not? And if you want to know who the harlot of Revelation is, start here.

These notes do not do this message justice. Please watch the video for undeniable proof about the paganism in Christianity.

Refresh where we’ve been. Studying the Torah. It’s clear as can be that God forbids us from making up our own ways of worshiping Him and he has explicitly told us not to worship the ways of the nations. Yom Kippur starts just 24 hours from now. This is the time to talk about repenting of sins. Often time we focus on the “love your neighbor” type sins that we need to repent of. This is a great topic, but I want to talk about the “love God with all your heart” sins today. We learn that the Day of Atonement includes sins committed in ignorance. Well, the paganism inside of Christianity contains an incredible amount of sins committed in ignorance. After today, though, you won’t be ignorant any more.

Slide 2 For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing no little business to the craftsmen; these he gathered together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business. “You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all. (Act 19:24-26)

The disciples were preaching against idolatry. They were not Christianizing pagan practices.  This topic is the one that got me out of mainstream Christianity. Once I accepted that the biggest doctrines of Christianity of Sunday, Christmas, crosses, and Easter were not founded on scripture, I dove into a period of study to find out where they came from. In reality, I was trying desperately to find a way for those doctrines to be true. I was desperate to find some mechanism for what I was learning to be wrong. Because if it were true, then all of my ancestors, relatives, and friends were in deep error. The word for blending religious practices is syncretism but in the bible, it’s called harlotry or adultery.

The reason this is important is because it is THE sin that Israel kept committing over and over. We just finished a year of deep diving into Torah. What topic was addressed more than any other? That’s right, worshiping other gods or blending pagan worship with worship of the true God. This sin did not stop being a sin after Yeshua died. In fact, this sin defines God’s people all the way to the end of this age.

Slide 3 After these things I heard something like a loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, saying, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God; BECAUSE HIS JUDGMENTS ARE TRUE AND RIGHTEOUS; for He has judged the great harlot who was corrupting the earth with her immorality, and HE HAS AVENGED THE BLOOD OF HIS BOND-SERVANTS ON HER.” (Rev 19:1-2)

The great harlot. Yes, this includes sexual immorality but it is talking more about paganism. The end time bad guy is the great harlot. That means idolatry, worshiping false gods, and taking Yahweh’s Name in vain are the big sins of the end times. They were the big sins when Abraham lived, the big sins when Moses lived, the big sins when Israel got smote, Israel refused these sins after they came back from captivity, we see the Apostles going all over the earth preaching against false gods, and then the end times judgment is about false god worship. This all adds up to spiritual harlotry, or syncretism, being a very big sin whenever you live.

Slide 4 Pat Robertson video

Pat Robertson and that lady are very popular Protestant ministers. Tens of millions of people follow these people and others like them. For them to be so open about this is shocking. The big reason I put this video up is to show that they actually know all the things I’m teaching today. And they don’t care. Idolatry is wrong. It’s the sin that Yahweh destroyed Israel for over and over. He loathed it, and He forbade any blending whatsoever. It’s a strange idea to say that Yahweh killed all the idolators of Egypt and Canaan, then punished Israel for doing it by killing them, and then all of a sudden it’s OK in the New Testament. That would be a God of confusion, whom Yahweh is not. We know from Acts that they preached against idolatry to the point that the merchants thought the world would turn from it. We need to stick with that. We need to get this stuff out of our lives.

Slide 5 Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to YHVH.” So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. (Exo 32:1-6)

This is specifically the blending that is forbidden. Nobody is allowed to make up how they worship Yahweh. None of us get to make that decision. Aaron was left in charge of the nation and folded, quickly, too. This is the huge warning against clergy blending things, it’s simply a death penalty sin. Many people were executed for this right then and there. They named the calf YHVH and made up a day for worship that included celebratory practices. This is all of the bad stuff wrapped up in one. Their celebratory practices included lewd behavior so the net result was similar to Saturnalia, a multi-day wintertime celebration by pagans that included debauchery, and treated December 25 and January 1 as holy days. Pat Robertson acknowledged that clergy decided to Christianize that, which is completely forbidden and why we do what we do. And Christianity’s acceptance of these practices is a cause of the end time harlotry. Those who know better are not telling their flocks the truth.

Slide 6 Ankh and Crosses It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour, because the sun was obscured; and the veil of the temple was torn in two. (Luk 23:44-45)

Rome crucified people to show they were in charge. The excruciating public execution was meant to teach a lesson. Often people were crucified at the entrance of a city so all coming and going had to be reminded of who was in charge. There’s one instance where 1000 people were crucified at the same time to crush a rebellion and show the world what happens if you defy Rome. In this literal sense, it’s bizarre that the cross became a symbol of anything holy. But in a religious sense, crosses are a symbol of sun worship and have been since Egypt, hence the ankh on the picture. Do we think Yahweh want’s us to use an Egyptian religious icon in our worship of Him? Rhetorical question.

Crosses are a symbol of religions that Yahweh commanded His people to avoid and destroy. The cross is how the Messiah was executed for a couple of reasons, one being that’s how non-Romans were executed by Rome. It showed He was not Roman and served its gruesome purpose, but who would ever use the instrument of murder to memorialize someone? At the reformation, many protestant faiths took those things down but they keep coming back. We don’t use these because they are pagan and for a bunch of other reasons.

Yeshua being killed on the symbol of a sun god was a huge insult. The sun going dark when He died showed that sun god did not win but the sun, the moon, and the stars are under Yahweh and Yeshua’s authority. But now you know a little why you don’t see any crosses around here!

Slide 7 And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people.

(Act 12:4 KJV)

When he had seized him, he put him in prison, delivering him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out before the people. (Act 12:4 NAS95)

Easter is also pagan. The first thing I want to show you is the remarkable syncretism that found it’s way into the KJV, the most popular Bible ever. The Greek word behind Easter is Pascha, which is the same as paschal lamb. There is ZERO doubt this is supposed to be Passover. Easter is a day for the pagan Goddess Eostre!

Slide 8 more Easter. This one is everywhere. Fertility goddess. Yes, Starbucks logo is a fertility goddess and they know it.

Slide 9 Sun Day

This is a sermon all by itself, but Sunday worship isn’t just an invented day to replace the Sabbath. Sol Invictus was one of the gods in the Roman empire that became the god of the Roman empire in the second and third centuries. Christmas traces to this god as well as Sunday worship. You may not realize it, but our days of the week and even some of our months are named after Roman gods. Sun-day is exactly that, the day of worshiping the sun god. Saturday is Saturn day, and so on. Rome hated the Jews and the Jews were known by Shabbat. No working, resting, no commerce from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset. The Romans wanted this gone. Christians were forced to give up the Sabbath when Christianity became the Roman religion, but it wasn’t really Christianity. It was a mixed up faith that all the Roman regions could adopt. And they worshiped on Sunday, not Shabbat. So Shabbat was banned, first by clergy and then by civil law. There are numerous quotes from both Catholics and Protestants about the change. The Catholics brazenly claim to have switched the day of worship and brag that the Protestants follow them. And they are correct. Sunday worship is 100% pagan, unless it’s Pentecost Sunday or some other high day. The Bible only sanctifies Shabbat.

Slide 10 Repent

This is a ton of information and just skims the top a bit. Many of us got into this faith of keeping the commandments because we discovered just one of these items was a huge error and then we unraveled all of it. When people discover this, their faith is often shaken and they go through a period of study that can last years. I was one of those types. You have to come to a point, though, about whether you will obey and turn from this wickedness or not. As I showed earlier, classically trained ministers know what we teach and they simply do not care. They somehow conclude that it’s OK to allow idolatry and syncretism even though the bible and history say no. It’s not even close to a grey area. We are not supposed to do any of these things at all, let alone in the Name of Yahweh.

Abraham was the first Hebrew. The word Hebrew means “one from beyond” but can also mean to cross over. Abraham crossed over from idolatry to worship of Yahweh. Crossing the Red Sea and then the Jordan also symbolizes this. After the faith went forth from Zion in the first century, people are invited to become as Abraham all over the world. We are invited to cross over from idolatry to worshiping the trued God. Take the invite.

As we prepare for Yom Kippur, let’s call to mind all of our sins. Today’s message was new information to some of you but old hat to others. I have some books on order to share that will educate everyone on the details of this wickedness. But I wanted to put this out just before Yom Kippur so we can repent comprehensively. Shalom.

Can You Do this One Thing for God?

If you knew there was something you were supposed to do for God, would you do it?

Imagine being at the crucifixion. Imagine being one of the disciples and witnessing the greatest Teacher of all time, the One to restore Israel, being murdered innocently by the overwhelming Roman Empire. Imagine watching your own countrymen defy their own laws to get Him crucified. Imagine hearing the cheers and jeers while watching. How helpless would you feel?

Did you know there is an annual holiday for being helpless that is part of the prophecy for the Messiah? Did you know that we’re supposed to be keeping this holiday?

When considerable time had passed and the voyage was now dangerous, since even the fast was already over, Paul started admonishing them, saying to them, “Men, I perceive that the voyage will certainly be with damage and great loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.” (Act 27:9-10)

The author of Acts, whom we believe to be Luke, referenced the change of seasons by using the Day of Atonement. The seas were changing because the planet was entering fall and that’s when seas got rough over there. Acts 27 is about Paul’s journey to Rome which occurred about 60 AD and was then recorded later. This casual reference three decades after Yeshua’s death and resurrection proves the Apostles continued to observe this day and intended for all who read Acts to be doing the same. This day starts at sunset, September 24th and ends Monday, September 25th at sunset this year. If you look outside here in the Kansas City Metro, you can see the seasons changing and the corn being harvested. Right on time.

One can fast for the faith pretty much whenever. But once a year, we are all supposed to fast. In reality, it’s deeper than that. It’s a day to humble our souls and fasting is part of that humbling. There are many ways to think about it, but it’s a day when we refuse food and water for 24 whole hours, from sunset to sunset, and effectively show how helpless we are. We need God to provide food and water for us to survive. We need Him to provide air to breathe as well. We are incapable of sustaining ourselves at all, let alone save ourselves from he wrath to come.

Many people, in fact almost all of Christianity, look at the faith of the Old Testament as a works based salvation. This day dispels that myth completely. This day shows that we literally must do nothing to be saved. Remember that helplessness I mentioned above? We are commanded to do exactly nothing so that someone else can atone for our sins. This, brothers and sisters, is from the Torah, the Old Testament, from long before Yeshua. Yeshua’s death shows us a fuller meaning of this day.

The Day of Atonement aka Yom Kippur aka the fast is also supremely impactful because everyone must do exactly the same nothing at the same time. This shows how we are all sinners and have fallen short of the glory. It’s a leveling of the playing field, showing that rich or poor, royalty or commoner, we all must fast and humble our souls or be removed from the Kingdom of God.

Everyone does the same humbling but the High Priest had work to do in temple days. The High Priest had to do extra purification work and then offer sacrifices for himself and then for the people. The book of Hebrews speaks of this in great detail and shows how Yeshua’s sacrifice fulfills Yom Kippur as well as Passover. We have a High Priest that willingly died sinless in order to mediate between us and Yahweh. Observing the fast shows our appreciation for that sacrifice.

Humbling ourselves also includes calling to mind our sins and shortcomings and repenting. The Day of Atonement was specifically to cleanse Israel of sins year by year. While Yeshua’s sacrifice accomplished this task once for all time, looking forward and looking backward, we still need to honor the day and call to mind our sins, as is evidenced by the verse on the screen. Judaism has a liturgy on Yom Kippur publicly confessing everything one can think of. Please do not wait for Yom Kippur to confess your sins. Prepare over these next few days. Reflect on your past year, or, if this is your first time, your entire life. Realize when you have wronged others and sinned against Yahweh. One sin we in the west don’t realize is idolatry, which is alive and well but masked behind a Christian veil. I will speak of this at length on Shabbat this week. Remember, the Torah tells us what sin is, so we study the Torah to live properly and understand where we have fallen short.

Yom Kippur is a day for the forgiveness of sins committed in ignorance as well. This is a remarkable blessing because as we learn the Bible, we continually learn sins we didn’t know of before. For teachers, we also sin when we teach incorrectly. Before we know things fully, we can often steer people wrong. This is very bad, but those are sins committed in ignorance.

On this note, we all must remember to be humble throughout the year and to be teachable. When Yeshua came the first time, the folks who had the hardest time accepting Him were those who thought they had their doctrine figured out completely. He told us specifically to come to the Kingdom like children, innocent and ready to learn from our Master the way a child looks to His parents. The knowledge of the fast is very powerful and impactful, please receive this information like a child. Investigate and understand that if Yeshua could die for us, then we can surely go 24 hours without food and water, abstain from all work, and get together in His Name one day a year. Remember, the disciples were told Yeshua was going to die, watched it, heard Him cry out scripture on the cross, and didn’t understand it until He was resurrected and then explained it to them. The author of Hebrews was obviously an educated Jew who had to be able to learn new information, like how Yeshua is now the High Priest sitting at the right hand of God. These examples of some of the most blessed people in history being teachable is an example for us all. Being able to accept new information is difficult, especially when one was raised to believe things a particular way. So our example from the disciples turned apostles is that we must be strong in our faith, but not so strong that the Messiah or His Father cannot show us a fuller understanding.

I will close with the question again. Can you do this one thing? Can you humble yourself for 24 hours to show your love of Yahweh and Yeshua? Can you?

Get Your Kids Out of the Government Schools!

At some point you need to realize it is more important for your daughter to not get raped by a boy pretending to be a girl in the girl’s bathroom at school than it is for her to learn how to plot an oval on graph paper. This is a podcast on why to get your kids out of the government schools.

The education tips mentioned in this podcast are available here Homeschooling Tips! – (firstcenturychristianity.net)

The Day of Trumpets

Explaining the Day of Trumpets and the return of the Messiah . A brief prophecy primer and what we can do to prepare for His return!

The Greatest Commandment

When Jesus told the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees what the Greatest Commandment was, He was telling them a whole lot more than to just love God. Understanding His words hinge on understanding Moses and the entire Old Testament. This message explains the two greatest commandments in a way you’ve probably never heard before.

Thanks for coming to worship with us! We’re a unique bunch so you may be seeing new things. We pattern our worship off the first century church, which was a little different than you see in modern Christianity. The first difference to touch on is that we sometimes pronounce God’s Name, Yahweh, in our assembly. We also often pronounce Jesus’ Name in Hebrew as well, which is Yeshua. This is to show respect for Yahweh and Yeshua but does not preclude us from saying God and Jesus as well. The second difference I’m going to explain is the topic of this message, a prayer called the Shema. This prayer comes directly from the book of Deuteronomy. The word Shema is Hebrew for listen or hear. Oftentimes passages or books in Hebrew are called by their first word. The first words of the Shema are “Hear oh Israel…”, hence it’s called The Shema. So why would a Christian be concerned with a prayer from the Old Testament. Funny you should ask!

Slide 2 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment.” (Mat 22:36-38)

The words that are in all caps are that way because the bible I use does that when the NT quotes the OT. This is a very helpful hint to show that a whole lot of the NT is really verses from the OT. Jesus, who was Jewish, is saying a little bit more than just the words in caps comprise the greatest commandment. So let me explain.

The chapters and verses of the Bible were added over a thousand years after the close of scripture. We have always had them, so we take them for granted. When we quote something, we say “John 3:16” or “Isaiah 53”. In Jesus’ day, they had a different system for doing this. They also didn’t have Bibles everywhere like we do. Having a printed bible prior to Gutenberg’s press was out of reach for almost everyone. To learn the Bible, people went to synagogue to read the community Torah or hear it read. Starting hundreds of years before Yeshua’s earthly minister, from the return from Babylon, Jewish culture was founded each on man hearing the Torah weekly and many hearing and reading it to the point of memorizing it in synagogue school. The intent of this education was to prevent another captivity through education and a system of accountability: if everybody knows the Bible, then everybody can do the Bible and hold each other to account. They created synagogues, which are the ancestors to modern day churches, where the people would learn the scriptures by hearing them read every Shabbat and they would also send children to school there during the week. This created a culture where Jews, particularly those who were concerned with religion, would communicate to each other by citing verses almost as casually as we talk about professional football. Almost.

Without chapters and numbers, the way they cited passages was to just quote the leading verse, or part of a verse, of a passage. So when Jesus quoted these words from the Shema, He was reminding all the people present of the entire prayer. Let’s look at the verses:

Slide 3 “Hear, O Israel! YHVH is our God, YHVH is one! You shall love YVHV your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deu 6:4-9)

Yeshua, Jesus, tells us that Moses’ lead sentence here to love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength, is the greatest commandment. But then Moses goes on to tell us how we love God. To love God, we need to keep His commandments in the foreground of our lives. We must teach them to our children so they learn to love and fear God. We must talk of them at every step of our day, from when we rise up to when we lie down. While we drive in our cars (or walk on the road if you prefer). Binding them as a sign on our wrists is colorful language telling us to do the commandments. Binding them as frontals on our foreheads means to make God the first thing we think of. Decorating our doorposts and our gates with His words is a reminder when we leave and when we return. Brothers and sisters, this is a recipe for success. Loving God in this lifetime to the extent of the Shema is a gateway to the olam ha ba, the world to come.

Slide 4 One of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “What commandment is the foremost of all?” Jesus answered, “The foremost is, ‘HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ “The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”(Mar 12:28-31)

In this instance, Yeshua tells broadens it to the two greatest commandments. You’ll notice that the second commandment is in all caps as well, which means that one is also from the Old Testament. This time from the book of Leviticus.

Slide 5 “Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger. I am the LORD your God. You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another. You shall not swear falsely by My name, so as to profane the name of your God; I am the LORD. You shall not oppress your neighbor, nor rob him. The wages of a hired man are not to remain with you all night until morning. You shall not curse a deaf man, nor place a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall revere your God; I am the LORD. You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly. You shall not go about as a slanderer among your people, and you are not to act against the life of your neighbor; I am the LORD. You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.” (Lev 19:9-18)

This puts some meat on the bone for how to love our neighbor, which is a question that comes up pretty often. If you’re not aware that Jesus is saying more than just “love your neighbor” through the method that they referenced scriptures back then, then it’s kind of up for interpretation. But now that we do know this is not a new commandment and loving your neighbor is defined, we can explore that.

The first part is to leave food in your field or vineyard for the needy at harvest time. This would allow for people to go out and enjoy the harvest that God provided with dignity. A field that wasn’t completely harvested would be the sign of a faithful farm owner who loved his neighbors. The harvest belongs to God, after all.

No stealing, no dealing falsely, and no lying to each other is another way to love our neighbors. This one doesn’t really need a lot of explanation. This develops and honest and open society which is a community of love.

No swearing falsely by the Name of God. Very important. This is why our nation swears politicians in with their hands on the Bible and why we get give sworn testimony in trials. It’s incredibly important when we invoke the Name of God to be as honest and forthright as possible because He knows the whole truth! Having this level of common respect among people is another way we love each other as ourselves because it creates a society of integrity.

The wages of a hired man not remaining overnight is expanded in other verses to mean a man who needed the money to feed his family and such. One who has the means to hire others needs to be cognizant of what it is like to need money and make sure he loves his neighbor, particularly one willing to work for his wages. Oscar de la hoya kept a food stamp in his wallet.

Treating people with disabilities properly is also key to loving our neighbors. Creating a society where people who need help getting around can have it readily shows a society that loves its neighbors. It means that people who are able stopped and realized others who are not need to be able to get around. The Tunnel to Towers Foundation building houses for wounded vets is a great example of this.

Impartially making judgments without respect to wealth or need is also crucial for a society. Each person needs to be judged the same, and the guilty should have the same penalties without respect to means. This commandment is why we have the lady with the blindfold holding the scales of justice. Loving our neighbor means to have fair and impartial rules governing society that are implemented equally.

We are not to slander one another. It goes without saying that this is the opposite of loving our neighbor.

We are not to take vengeance, hate our countrymen, or bear grudges in order to love our neighbor. Seems like such a novel idea, but wouldn’t society be a much better place if we did live like this?

Slide 6 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (Joh 5:46-47)

Now you can see how rich these sentences really were. Yeshua was building on a system that was already in place, having been given by Yahweh 1500 years prior through Moses. He did not come to make something entirely new, but to clarify and expand on what they already had. In order for us to understand Jesus, we need to study Moses and all the Old Testament, understanding that we are blessed to join into the faith of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Yeshua. And when we study the faith from Genesis to Revelation, the words of the Messiah and the Apostles take one much more meaning. Shalom.

Salvation and Works

Salvation and Works

The truth about salvation and works.

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph 2:8-9)

This is the famous verse that believers use to show we can’t save ourselves. That’s completely true. We can’t save ourselves. Yahweh grants salvation to whomever He wishes. Paul writes the same thing in Romans 9:18, that Yahweh hardens whom He hardens and has mercy on who He has mercy.

The challenge comes when folks focus on this topic to the extreme position that negates works with respect to salvation. The idea is that because works can’t save, then one doesn’t need to do anything to obtain or maintain salvation. This is a ridiculous concept.

Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Yeshua the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Act 2:37-38)

Repentance means what we all think it means, to be sorry for what you have done, acknowledge it, and decide to not do it again. Peter is talking to the very people who had Yeshua innocently executed. Murdering people will prevent you from being in the kingdom, therefore not murdering people is required for salvation. Repentance covers sins, therefore one must acknowledge sins and repent of them to be saved. What are sins, pray tell?

Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness. You know that He appeared in order to take away sins; and in Him there is no sin. No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him. (1Jn 3:4-6)

Read more in the pdf below but this is best experienced through the media options.

Works-and-Faith-pdfDownload

Artificial Intelligence and the Faith Once Delivered

A warning about how artificial intelligence will negatively affect our approach to the faith once delivered in particular, but ultimately all subjects of study.

AI and the Faith

We’re wrapping up a year of doing the Torah studies at our assembly. This is something the first century Christians did without a doubt. Yeshua even participated in this early in His ministry by reading Isaiah in the synagogue. In Acts 15, the apostles understood the Gentiles who accepted Yeshua would attend synagogue and hear Moses every Shabbat. So, every few years we go through the Torah portions because it’s a good thing to do, it copies the early church, and it helps us to refresh and relearn. Sometimes we even unlearn things along the way. Bear with me as a debunk a doctrine and the show just how powerful bad teachings are, especially with AI right around the corner.

One of these unlearned things is a quirky doctrine that circulates our movement pretty regularly.

Slide 2 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, and it happens that she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out from his house, and she leaves his house and goes and becomes another man’s wife, and if the latter husband turns against her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter husband dies who took her to be his wife, then her former husband who sent her away is not allowed to take her again to be his wife, since she has been defiled; for that is an abomination before the LORD, and you shall not bring sin on the land which the LORD your God gives you as an inheritance. (Deu 24:1-4)

This is a mitzvot, which is a commandment or directive, that states if a guy divorces his wife and she marries another guy, she can’t come back to the first guy if the second guy dies. That’s all this is saying. It doesn’t mean she can’t go to a third guy if the second one dies, she just can’t ever go back to the first. Somewhere in the Hebrewverse, somebody read this backwards and turned it into a doctrine that goes something like “because Yahweh divorced Israel, Yeshua had to die, so Israel could go back to Yahweh.” Brothers and sisters, there’s no way to get that out of these verses.

When we interpret scripture, we must remember that at no point can a verse be interpreted to not mean what it means in the literal. The NT references the OT a ton and in each case, the verses are explained, used as analogies, used as metaphors, used as prophesies, etc. But the interpretation never make the original usage of the verse null or contradict it. A big one of these is how we keep Shabbat. The Sabbath has to remain the Sabbath, even though rest is used in different contexts. Another is the diet. People say Yeshua made anything food and then they use Peter’s vision in Acts 10 to say that we can eat whatever today. Well, Peter said he had never eaten anything unclean. In those passages, Yahweh is using Leviticus 11, the laws of clean and unclean food, to tell Peter that the Gentiles are not inherently unclean. Yahweh was preparing Peter to witness Gentiles getting the Holy Spirit. The vision didn’t mean anything about food at all and Peter had never considered violating Torah. So Leviticus 11 stands and we understand the Gentiles (us) are now OK to draw near to Yahweh through the shed blood of Yeshua, which cleanses us.

Slide 3 And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” Yeshua answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. (Mat 13:10-13)

Yeshua spoke in parables so we are supposed to have to look for meaning. The bible is written with the intention of interpretation. For instance, we’re allowed to use the divorce commandment as analogies, metpahors, and the like. And the bible has sarcasm, idioms, and even humor. We need to interpret the bible, but we also need to be disciplined in that and understand it’s normal literature. Sometimes things are meant to be interpreted and re-applied, sometimes not.

When Yahweh says He divorces Israel and Judah in Jeremiah 3, for instance, He’s not being literal. In these cases Israel and Judah were allowed to return to Him, which in Deut 24 is not possible for a literally divorced woman to return to her original husband. So Yahweh is using divorce and adultery as an analogy and metaphor for their behavior. Israel and Judah were not literally divorced. These verses were never intended to be taken literally!

So the doctrine that circulates our movement about Yeshua divorcing isn’t true. Great, Chris, you’ve corrected another silly doctrine. So what does this have to do with Artificial Intelligence?

Slide 4 Confusion

It has to do with AI because this doctrine is popular. It has to be refuted because it won’t go away. The way the internet has worked since search engines came out is based on popularity. There is a logical fallacy from days of old called the ad populum logical fallacy, which means that just because a lot of people believe something, that doesn’t mean it is true or good. In fact, a lot of bad and wrong things get a ton of attention. Think about fail videos, which are videos of people failing dramatically at odd things, like wrecking a motorcycle or falling down stairs. Our news has been saturated with murder and horrific stories for decades because, well, that draws people’s attention. Seriously, have you ever seen traffic not slow down when passing a wreck on the highway?

My daughters and I discovered our flat screen TV has a ton of channels for free if the TV is plugged into the internet. As we were cruising through the channels, we came across one that is trying to show evidence of alien life on earth through ancient historical sites and religious practices. This was a well-produced “documentary” in air quotes and the “scientists” in air quotes were being dead serious. We checked out when they tied the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation/communion to being some kind of ancient alien beckoning device. It was absurd to the extreme. But guess what? We watched it. We watched it because it was absurd.

Did you know that computers can’t tell the difference between a highly watched absurd video and a highly watched sermon? The computer only knows to prioritize things that are highly watched or engaged in. The ad populum logical fallacy.

You see, no matter how intelligent a computer appears to be, it can’t reason. It can only compare. And the comparisons are based on precedents: what similar thing happened before? We already have a preview of what AI is going to do to our faith through YouTube. YouTube uses the popularity algorithm to associate video content and recommend things to people that prior viewers watched. YouTube, and Google in general, keep track of everything their users do – even while off their websites, and then find similar people and then recommend content to everyone to do what? Keep people engaged on their platforms. Our faith has been permanently associated with many conspiracy theories and just strange stuff because of Google, and this is why the Yeshua dying divorce thing keeps coming up – because it was popular among Torah followers. It’s an incorrect popular doctrine, so people refute it, which generates debates and traffic, so it gets more and more popular. And then algorithms kick in and make it even more popular.

Let’s take this to the next level with AI. AI isn’t really intelligence, it’s just super computers being able to scour all the available information on the internet at the speed of light. Guess what? Most of the popular stuff on the internet is wrong and only popular because it was sensational. What’s that going to do to our common faith? What’s that going to do with just about any topic? It’s just going to push the worst and most absurd info more and more into the mainstream and people aren’t going to be able to determine truth from fiction. Computers don’t know interpretation, sarcasm, nuance, and tone of voice. They just compare. And algorithms just show us the most popular stuff. This is why we already deal with crazy doctrines and many try to come up with sensational stuff knowing it will get a foothold. Now we’re adding AI into this mix and finding the boring old truth is going to be a very difficult task.

Slide 5 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good; abstain from every form of evil. (1Th 5:21-22)

The remedy for this is to do what we are finishing up at our assembly: study the Bible. And follow teachers who teach the Bible from the Bible and from accredited sources, like old school printed books or bible software, concordances, dictionaries, and the like. The old adage that a lie travels around the world before the truth can get its shoes on is very much in play. We have to study to show ourselves approved and that means putting in the work and restricting ourselves to sober teachers and teachings.

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