Post by alon on Nov 6, 2015 3:07:04 GMT -8
Here is another excerpt from a teaching by Rav S. There is so much in these teachings I wish I could post all my notes. But they are his teachings, not mine. But here is a lot we need to understand taken from from one verse. Enjoy:
Galatians 1:17 (ESV) nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
After Rav Sha'ul was struck blind he was led by the hand to Damascus to meet Ananias. Ananias was Messianic, and here’s what it says about him:
Acts 22:12 (ESV) “And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there,
Why’s he keeping
if he’s covered by grace? You’ve got to understand this. If he wasn’t keeping kashrut and wearing tzitzits and keeping Shabbat, he’d be getting at least flogged daily or even killed. This is after the death and resurrection of Jesus and he’s keeping the Law! One cannot reasonably read this verse and think that the Law has been done away with.
So Paul went to Damasek (Damascus) and then he went to Saudi Arabia. Why’d he go to Saudi? Probably to go to Mt Sinai. The real Mt. Sinai is not at St. Kathryn's down in the Negev where they take the tourists, but rather in Saudi Arabia. Paul probably went to Mt. Sinai in order to spend time alone and to receive some counseling directly from Yeshua. You have to understand, Paul had been killing the Nazarenes. He didn’t know they were the good guys. He thought he was helping G-d, he thought he was doing the right thing. All of a sudden he finds out that he was on the wrong side. The faces of each of the people he’d killed are now flooding through his mind. Without counseling directly from Yeshua, he may have gone insane. In times of great introspection, it wasn’t uncommon for Jews in ancient times to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Sinai.
Elijah did the same thing. In 1 kings we read the story of how Jezabel was making Elijah’s life so miserable Elijah asked G-d to take him home. The passage says that He goes to Beer Sheva and sits under a broom tree (not a juniper tree like the KJV says). The only thing that provides any shade down there are broom trees, which are more like bushes. After that Elijah goes to Mt. Sinai and there, the L-rd ministers to him.
So Paul made the trip and while there he became a Shaliach Tzibur. Shaliach Tzibur is where we get the word Apostle. Sometimes we just say the Shaliach. There were different positions within the Synagogue and one of those positions is the Shaliach Tzibur. This is still one of the positions in every synagogue today.
Shaliach literally means announcer and Tzibur literally means public. So Public Announcer, but it means Agent of the Community or representative of the community. The Shaliach Tzibur is a well-known position in the Synagogue and it’s written about all over in Rabbinical writings. Josephus even uses the Greek form of the word apostolos (apostle) when referring to a group sent on a diplomatic mission. You can use the term secularly; it depends on the context. But when used in a religious context it has a specific meaning and we know at length what that position entailed in the first century.
The Shaliach was the representative of the Synagogue or even the entire sect. You could have many Shaliachs within a sect. The sect of the Nazarenes had many Shaliachs. The 12 were Shaliachs, Paul became a Shaliach, Silas was a Shaliach and Yeshua was a Shaliach. What? How could Yeshua be an apostle? Because he was the leader of the sect. The New testament doesn’t dispute that.
Hebrews 3:1 (ESV) Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,
If you went by Christian theology and thought an apostle meant a disciple or any Christian teacher, Hebrews 3:1 wouldn’t make any sense to you. But now that you know that it means a representative of the community, now it can come into the light.
In church we were taught that an Apostle was one of the twelve original “Christian” Disciples. Yeshua was not a disciple of Yeshua. Neither was He a Christian. There were no Christians at that time!
Another popular definition of Apostle is he had to be someone who actually saw Jesus. There’s a variation of that one where they say one had to have seen him and had to be a witness to the resurrection. Their “proofs”:
1 Corinthians 9:1 (ESV) Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?
Rav Sha’ul is simply reminding them who he is. He’s saying to them I’m not some slave, and not only that, I’m an apostle and I’ve even seen the Messiah with my own eyes. Moreover I am the one who brought you the gospel! It’s his own credentials, not an apostolic checklist.
Acts 4:33 (ESV) And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.
This doesn’t mean you have to have seen Jesus in order to be an apostle. All this means is that the apostles at that time saw the resurrection and it was powerful. Nowhere does it say it is a requirement to have seen the resurrection to be an apostle.
Acts 1:20-26 (ESV) “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “‘Let another take his office.’ So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
There were 11 Shaliachs, or apostles left after Judas. If you were going to be one of the 12 you had to be an apostle, that’s true; the criteria to be one of the 12 was to be an apostle, but the criteria to be an apostle was not to be one of the 12. The criteria for being an apostle was not that you had to see Jesus. But you had to see Jesus to be one of the 12. You see, they’re mixing up the terms and thus the criteria. Easy to understand if you don’t read it with Christian interjection, but rather read it with a Jewish Perspective.
Even the Christians call him the “Apostle Paul,” yet they persist in these contradictory definitions. Rav Sha’ul did not witness the resurrection, and he was not one of the 12. Yet he was a Sheliach; an apostle.
And Paul was NOT the apostle to the Gentiles. No, he was the apostle to the goyim, the apostle to the nations. He was the Shaliach that was first appointed to go to various countries and tell the Jews of those nations the besorah of Yeshua.
Galatians 1:17 (ESV) nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
After Rav Sha'ul was struck blind he was led by the hand to Damascus to meet Ananias. Ananias was Messianic, and here’s what it says about him:
Acts 22:12 (ESV) “And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there,
Why’s he keeping
if he’s covered by grace? You’ve got to understand this. If he wasn’t keeping kashrut and wearing tzitzits and keeping Shabbat, he’d be getting at least flogged daily or even killed. This is after the death and resurrection of Jesus and he’s keeping the Law! One cannot reasonably read this verse and think that the Law has been done away with.So Paul went to Damasek (Damascus) and then he went to Saudi Arabia. Why’d he go to Saudi? Probably to go to Mt Sinai. The real Mt. Sinai is not at St. Kathryn's down in the Negev where they take the tourists, but rather in Saudi Arabia. Paul probably went to Mt. Sinai in order to spend time alone and to receive some counseling directly from Yeshua. You have to understand, Paul had been killing the Nazarenes. He didn’t know they were the good guys. He thought he was helping G-d, he thought he was doing the right thing. All of a sudden he finds out that he was on the wrong side. The faces of each of the people he’d killed are now flooding through his mind. Without counseling directly from Yeshua, he may have gone insane. In times of great introspection, it wasn’t uncommon for Jews in ancient times to make a pilgrimage to Mt. Sinai.
Elijah did the same thing. In 1 kings we read the story of how Jezabel was making Elijah’s life so miserable Elijah asked G-d to take him home. The passage says that He goes to Beer Sheva and sits under a broom tree (not a juniper tree like the KJV says). The only thing that provides any shade down there are broom trees, which are more like bushes. After that Elijah goes to Mt. Sinai and there, the L-rd ministers to him.
So Paul made the trip and while there he became a Shaliach Tzibur. Shaliach Tzibur is where we get the word Apostle. Sometimes we just say the Shaliach. There were different positions within the Synagogue and one of those positions is the Shaliach Tzibur. This is still one of the positions in every synagogue today.
Shaliach literally means announcer and Tzibur literally means public. So Public Announcer, but it means Agent of the Community or representative of the community. The Shaliach Tzibur is a well-known position in the Synagogue and it’s written about all over in Rabbinical writings. Josephus even uses the Greek form of the word apostolos (apostle) when referring to a group sent on a diplomatic mission. You can use the term secularly; it depends on the context. But when used in a religious context it has a specific meaning and we know at length what that position entailed in the first century.
The Shaliach was the representative of the Synagogue or even the entire sect. You could have many Shaliachs within a sect. The sect of the Nazarenes had many Shaliachs. The 12 were Shaliachs, Paul became a Shaliach, Silas was a Shaliach and Yeshua was a Shaliach. What? How could Yeshua be an apostle? Because he was the leader of the sect. The New testament doesn’t dispute that.
Hebrews 3:1 (ESV) Therefore, holy brothers, you who share in a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession,
If you went by Christian theology and thought an apostle meant a disciple or any Christian teacher, Hebrews 3:1 wouldn’t make any sense to you. But now that you know that it means a representative of the community, now it can come into the light.
In church we were taught that an Apostle was one of the twelve original “Christian” Disciples. Yeshua was not a disciple of Yeshua. Neither was He a Christian. There were no Christians at that time!
Another popular definition of Apostle is he had to be someone who actually saw Jesus. There’s a variation of that one where they say one had to have seen him and had to be a witness to the resurrection. Their “proofs”:
1 Corinthians 9:1 (ESV) Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?
Rav Sha’ul is simply reminding them who he is. He’s saying to them I’m not some slave, and not only that, I’m an apostle and I’ve even seen the Messiah with my own eyes. Moreover I am the one who brought you the gospel! It’s his own credentials, not an apostolic checklist.
Acts 4:33 (ESV) And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.
This doesn’t mean you have to have seen Jesus in order to be an apostle. All this means is that the apostles at that time saw the resurrection and it was powerful. Nowhere does it say it is a requirement to have seen the resurrection to be an apostle.
Acts 1:20-26 (ESV) “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, “‘May his camp become desolate, and let there be no one to dwell in it’; and “‘Let another take his office.’ So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.” And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was also called Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.” And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
There were 11 Shaliachs, or apostles left after Judas. If you were going to be one of the 12 you had to be an apostle, that’s true; the criteria to be one of the 12 was to be an apostle, but the criteria to be an apostle was not to be one of the 12. The criteria for being an apostle was not that you had to see Jesus. But you had to see Jesus to be one of the 12. You see, they’re mixing up the terms and thus the criteria. Easy to understand if you don’t read it with Christian interjection, but rather read it with a Jewish Perspective.
Even the Christians call him the “Apostle Paul,” yet they persist in these contradictory definitions. Rav Sha’ul did not witness the resurrection, and he was not one of the 12. Yet he was a Sheliach; an apostle.
And Paul was NOT the apostle to the Gentiles. No, he was the apostle to the goyim, the apostle to the nations. He was the Shaliach that was first appointed to go to various countries and tell the Jews of those nations the besorah of Yeshua.
