We know the scriptures. We can cite the clean and unclean separation of what is and is not food from Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14. We can break down Mark 7 to the bare bones like skinning an elk in hunting season. We can do a tactical take down of Colossians 2 in the historical context of what it means to not let someone judge you for keeping feasts. We can do a work down of how Romans 14 is about fasting and eating and not eating, and hasn't anything to do with Sabbath keeping.
We can tell you what certain words mean, and what they don't. We can tell you that Grace is not a means to sin, and define sin in 1 John 3:4 and define Love according to the book of James. We can show you how the word Covenant is missing from two verses in Hebrews 8 but the translators added it to the text anyway. We can rightly divide the racial components of Peters vision and point to how everyone that heard the vision defined it as meaning
We are Messianic Believers, we know the scriptures.
...but what happens when someone doesn't know the scriptures?
Do we roll in with our arsenal prepared? We're locked and loaded and ready to beat the bad doctrine out of those that oppose us? I know I've done it. I know there are certain fights one gets into not on behalf of the opponent but for the sake of the spectators that might take hold of his bad doctrine. How do we fight? Do we season our words with Grace? Do we even exemplify Grace at all?
Can our audience hear the word of God over our own mouths that are proclaiming it? Why aren't they coming to truth when we HAMMER them with scriptures and SHOW them how wrong they are? Don't they know that we're doing it out of love when we grasp Peter's words calling this ignorant and unstable for using the writings of Paul that way? When we show that our ARGUMENTS are superior, why do people not lay down their objections and join us when we've broken them to silence?
We know the scriptures.
We're Messianic Believers
There are many of us that will dig deep into the fringe and the mysticism. We'll transplant scriptures into parts of Jack and the Beanstalk and maybe change some of the names, packaging things together and try to sell it to meek Christians as special secret knowledge of God. Why aren't they taking this?
We can tell people that Satan is trying to snare us and bring us low and therefore we must always be one step ahead of Satan by studying him and his movements and his ways and his plots and his schemes, and we'll reach into the box of scriptures to pull out justifications to use for this... like..
But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her on a bed of sickness, and those who commit adultery with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds.And I will kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He who searches the minds and hearts; and I will give to each one of you according to your deeds. 24 But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them—I place no other burden on you. (rev 2)...whoops, no that's the wrong one... you know what never mind, because know the scriptures.
We go through the Torah portions all the time and we can tell you all the cool parallels of Joseph being unrecognized by his brothers and how that parallels Messiah and the Jews. We can read about how Moses leading the mixed multitude of Israel out of Egypt being a picture of the Messiah leading us out of the bondage of sin, and how the parting of the sea is a picture of baptism into new life of freedom. We can tell you about who Jacob said that he wrestled with, and how angel doesn't always mean angel.
..because we KNOW these scriptures...
... but can we tell you the last time something in the word of God utterly crushed our heart? Can we share with you about the last time we were reading the proverbs and stepped outside our stoic images and confessed to the weight of our own sin? Can we share our struggles with one another, or would that damage that crystalline image we have made of ourselves as holy and closest to God?
Would you think less of everything else that we know of the scriptures if we admitted that there are things that we fall short on? When Paul boasted of his weakness, do we compare in the full measure or just the boasting part?
... We're Messianic but are we believers?
Some will talk about being the TRUE Israel based on the melanin in their skin and talk about how they are the chosen race and those other Jews are a synagogue of satan just pretending to be real chosen, and they'll state clearly that the their tribe is black and goes all the way back to the beginning. Well, unless you factor in that the Tribes were already established by then and then Moses married a Cushite woman that Miriam was bad mouthing and she was struck by God making her skin as white as white can be... but.. thats besides the point. Other will talk about the supremacy of Judah and how important is to be Jewish, and that talmud that gives all the deep insights of the authoritative Oral law as binding, well, except that the teachings of the rabbis were rebuked by the Messiah, but they seem to think that doing a 23 and me DNA test will surely help give one a holy edge. Or some still might even tell you that that we are not saved by works, and we're not, but also then tell you that if you aren't doing all the works set out then you're not saved. Some will tell you all about what Laws apply to Jews and what others are just for the Gentiles and never mind the fundamental flaw of that creating two separate standards of sin for humanity, forget that it predicates that God is a respecter of persons and favors one race above another, just disregard that the Scriptures state that there is neither Jew or Gentile at all as we are one in Messiah.
Do we know the scriptures?
What do we believe?
There are those that will tell you the biography of the catholic church and each conspiracy and alternate history where books that were never Scriptures were removed from the Bible for nefarious reasons keeping you from the super secret ultra truth. They'll invest hours and hours and hours pouring over the possibility and plausibility of a vast wide reaching NASA conspiracy that is contrived under the altruistic banner of keeping you fro knowing the.... let me check my notes... the true shape of the earth. They can tell you of all the theories of the dome but can they tell you about the deep crust that callouses the heart? There are those that will tell you that even slept with Satan and that the flood was the wash out God's very own ineptitude of genetic impurities and give you a discourse of the Nephilem that will make the Iliad look like a biography rooted in normalcy.
Bro do we even scripture?
What even are we...
