My study of Torah began in 1996, around the time I made my first trip to Israel. This study has been life changing. I call the Torah "Bible 101" because I believe it is the basic understanding one needs in order to understand The Scriptures - especially the New Testament. I found this article very helpful for those who seek to know and understand. I hope you will ponder this and prayerfully consider these truths.
Should Christians Study the Torah?
The study of the written Torah should be paramount in everyone’s lives,
since it provides the foundation and context for truly understanding the
mission and words of the Messiah Yeshua Himself. Indeed, it can be
argued that reading the New Testament without a solid understanding of the Torah
is like reading out of context – invariably ideas alien to the true meaning of
the text will be imported and erroneous conclusions will be formed. (The books
of the New Testament were not compiled until 480 to 500 years after the
resurrection of the Messiah.)
Often Christians think that the written Torah is virtually irrelevant
today, since the doctrines of the Church are made explicit in the New Testament
writings. However, this is a serious mistake, as the following facts will
demonstrate:
1. Yeshua and all His disciples were
Torah observant Jews. The Scriptures that they studied loved, and
quoted were the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings. As a child,
Yeshua would have studied the Torah and memorized it with other
Jewish children. He would also have been familiar with the teachings of
the earlier Jewish Sages of Israel. (Gamaliel, Hillel, and Uziel)
Indeed,
Yeshua said that He did not come to abolish the Torah or the
Prophets, but to fulfill them (Matt. 5:17-19). He later told a
prospective follower of His, “If you would enter life, keep the commandments”
(Matt. 19:17).
2. Yeshua said that the Jewish
Scriptures plainly testify of Him (John 5:39). As His followers, we
should understand what this means and how they indeed bear witness of Him as
the King of the Jews (Matt. 2:2, 27:11). In addition, by studying Torah,
we can more fully appreciate the glory and grace as revealed in the Person and
Work of our beloved savior. For example, we can more fully savor the role
of the sacrificial system and how Yeshua fulfilled all of G-d’s
holy requirements on our behalf as the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) of the
New Covenant.
3. When two disciples were on
their way to the town of Emmaus discussing the implications of the crucifixion
of Yeshua three days earlier, who but Yeshua Himself appeared
alongside of them and taught them from the Jewish Scriptures? “And
beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself’ (Luke 24:13-36).
4. The “Church” was born on the
Jewish holiday of Shavot (Pentecost) among the Jewish people in
Jerusalem. Peter’s sermon during that festival (Acts 2:1-41) was entirely
Jewish, quoting from the Prophets and David, which would have meant little to
any Gentiles in earshot (if there were any). It is likely, therefore,
that the 3,000 people who were saved that day would have all been Jewish.
The earliest members of the new church met regularly in the Temple, where
Gentiles were explicitly excluded (Acts 2:46). Note the Apostles Peter and
John are recorded to have gone to the Temple for prayer during the time of the minchah
(afternoon) sacrifices (Acts 3:1), and their ministry continued exclusively
among the Jewish people, “among whom were thousands who believed and were
zealous for the Torah” (Acts 21:20). Even after they were
imprisoned but miraculously escaped, an angel told them to “go, stand and speak
in the Temple to the people all the words of this life” (Acts 5:20).
5. Later, when the Jerusalem
Council wrote their letter to the Gentiles regarding their relationship to the Torah,
they advised them to at first abstain from those things that would make them
abhorrent to the Jews, with the assumption that they would later go on to study
the Torah of Moses and the other Jewish Scriptures (Acts 15:19-21).
6. The Apostle Paul was raised
a Torah observant Jew who studied under the famous Rabbi Gamaliel in
Jerusalem (Acts 22:3). Rabbi Sha’ul (as he would have been called) was
well established in the Jewish leadership of his day, and even had a
relationship with the Sanhedrin and High Priest (Kohen Ha’godal) of Israel
(Acts 9:1-2). But even after his conversion on the road to Damascus (Acts
9:1-21), he still identified himself a Jew. In Acts 23:6 he confessed, “I
am (not was) a Pharisee.” He even declared that concerning
the observance of the Torah he was “blameless,” which indicates that he
observed a Jewish lifestyle to his dying day (Phil. 3:6; Acts 25:7-8,
28:17). Paul even took the Nazirite vow (Acts 18:18), lived “in observance
of the Torah (Acts 21:23-24), and actually offered sacrifices in order
to be released from his Nazirite vow, but also paid for the sacrifices for four
other Jewish believers! Notice also that this was performed at the
explicit request of James, the head of the Jerusalem Church (and half-brother
of Yeshua).
Paul regularly attended synagogue: “He
came to Thessalonica, where was a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as
his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with
them out of the Scriptures” (Acts 17:1-2). And when Paul later wrote to
the Gentile churches, “All Scripture is breathed out by G-d and
profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness…” (2 Timothy 3:16-17), he was of course referring to the Jewish
Scriptures, since the New Testament had not yet been compiled for the Church.
7. Many Christian
denominations profess to believe in the authority of both the “Old
Testament” and the New Testament Scriptures while functionally regulating the
study of the Torah to the dust heap of history. If the Jewish
Scriptures are to be taken seriously at all, these denominational traditions
attempt to explain away their clear reading (for example, the covenantal
promises made to ethnic Israel) and arrogate the intent of the text as being
applicable solely to the church. (copied)
