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Analyzing the New Covenant
by
Judith Koch
Most Christians automatically assume that we are living in New Covenant times, mostly because of the manmade way the Bible was divided into Old and New Covenant (Testament) sections. Everything beginning with Matthew is regarded as referring to the time of the New Covenant. Yet, when looking at the wording of the new covenant, you’ll find two startling facts: 1) the language is all future tense, despite Hebrews 8 having been written well after the death and resurrection of the Messiah, and 2) the events that define the new covenant are events that have not yet occurred.
Let’s ta ... read more
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Faith, Works, and Salvation
by
Judith Koch
One of the most precious promises in all of scripture is found in Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Since we are told in Romans 3:23 that we have all sinned and come short of God’s glory, we can cling to this promise that through our faith, despite our sin, we can still be saved. Without this promise, not one of us could even hope for eternal life in heaven.
But does this promise absolve us of all responsibility to do good works? Clearly not, as we read the v ... read more
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I’m Not “Under the Law” I’m “Under Grace”
by
Andre Robles
Whenever the topic of Torah observance comes up inevitably the same few verses come up. One of the most misunderstood is Romans 6:14 “…for you are not under law but under grace.” Inevitably the phrase here is used as a way of showing that we do not have to follow the law because we now have grace. This is faulty on both a philosophical and exegetical level however we have been told for so long that it is true that now the Christian church just takes it as fact. Let’s go a little more in-depth on this phrase and see what we can learn from its immediate cont ... read more
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Loving Yahweh With All your Heart, Mind and Strength
by
Erin Coates
What does it mean to love Yahweh with all of your heart, mind and strength? There was a reason that Yeshua specifically named these three areas. Contrary to common thinking in mainstream churches today, Yeshua did not replace the Torah with this commandment, He said it was the greatest because on it hung all of the laws and the prophecies. In other words, this rule summarized all the rest. All the other laws are how we flush out this rule (and, of course, loving your neighbor as yourself). Let's explore the practical application of this summary that Yeshua made.
... read more
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NT Reasons For Torah Obedience
by
Bernie Honigfort
Torah really means Instruction, not the word Law as it was sometimes translated in the New Testament. This has caused a misunderstanding among Christians who claim Yeshua did away with the Law and Commandments of Yahweh. What Yeshua taught against were all the extra laws of man that were added when the house of Judah returned from Babylon.
(1)John said: sin IS violating Torah (1 John 3:4)
Whoever commits sin transgresses also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law.
(2)Paul said: Grace is no reason to continue violating Torah (Romans 6:1-2)
1 What shall we say then? Shall we conti ... read more
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Old law, new grace?
by
Judith Koch
Somewhere through the centuries, people have come up with the idea that the differences between the first covenant (Old Testament) and the renewed covenant (New Testament) are law versus grace, obedience versus faith, and an angry God versus the gospel of a loving Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth. You will find law and grace, obedience and faith, and the wrath of God and the gospel of Jesus in both testaments. This is because there is one consistent God throughout all of scripture, throughout all of eternity.
First of all, let’s let Scripture define the new covenant. ... read more
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The Book of Acts -- A Faithful Church History
by
Andre Robles
In seeking to understand what Christianity is truly supposed to look like when walked out (i.e. what the daily life of a Christian should look like). I’ve discovered that if you go to 2 different Christians you will get 4 different answers. This makes sense when Christ taught that the laws are to be obeyed not just legalistically in our practice but should be followed from the heart, the very core of our being (Matt 5:13-28). Whereas Paul, arguably the most influential person in the Apostolic Scriptures, teaches what on the surface seems to contradict the teachings of Jesus regarding the ... read more
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The Council At Jerusalem
by
Darryl Weinberg
In Acts 15, the Jerusalem Assembly called a meeting because a matter of great urgency had arisen. A large number of people from the nations had begun to come to faith and although it was prophetic fulfillment, the Body of Messiah which was predominantly Jewish was caught off guard by this new development.
Now the question began to arise as to what to do with all of these former pagans. For the Jews it was easy; continue on as they were but realize that every command they obeyed was simply pointing to Messiah’s perfect righteousness and not their own and their need for a savi ... read more
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What does it mean to be “under grace”?
by
Judith Koch
In my last column, I made a case for the fact that Paul’s statement in Romans 6:14 that we are not “under the law” was not a valid reason to break any of God’s Commandments. In it, I promised to explain what this verse is really saying, by looking at it in context.
One thing we should probably keep in mind is that it was a well known fact that, even in Bible times, Paul’s writings were hard to understand. Peter said in 2 Peter 3:16 that the unlearned and unstable struggle with his writing, to their own destruction. Those are some pretty strong words. We don ... read more
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Will the Real Yeshua Please Stand Up?
by
Erin Coates
Anyone remember the show "To Tell The Truth"? This was a popular show in the 50's and 60's in which there were three contestants who all claimed to be the same person. One of the contestants was (who was the real subject) had to tell the truth about himself and the other two (who were pretending to to be the subject) could lie all they wanted. The idea was to deceive the audience and get them to vote for you even if you weren't the actual subject. Contestants would lie, make up all kinds of interesting stories about themselves and do practically anything to make the aud ... read more
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