Describe yourself!

[alon]

Jul 28, 2018 14:00:38 GMT -8 bloodcoveredprincess said:

oh my goodness.... I don't even understand the categories..... if anyone would like to explain them or point me in the right direction to find out what they mean that would be cool

Well, this is just my interpretation of what the OP meant. but here goes:

Hebrew Roots Christian- HR is a loose category for any part of the movement that just wants to know more about the origins of their faith; but a lot of craziness gets mixed in. When I was in HR I used to say searching through all the bad information there was like digging in a dung heap for a gold nugget. Every once in a while you'd find one, and it made the stink worthwhile.

Two House or Two House Sacred Names Messianic- Two House theology says there is one for the Jews and one for the Gentiles. Some say we are only responsible for the 7 Noachide Laws (until you ask "What about the 10 Commandments?" Then they say "Oh those too!" Right ...). Others have their own list, and others say if God did not specifically address the commandment to the Gentiles we are not responsible for it. What they all have in common is an excuse of some sort not to obey . Sacred Names Messianic is a misnomer, as there is no such thing. But they try to fly our flag. These people have all kinds of convoluted ways to say the names of God and Yeshua. They say if you don't pronounce the names right, you are not saved. The thing is there are no ancient texts with the spellings necessary to pronounce the names the way they do; nor do any Jews or Hebrew scholars pronounce them the way they do. We prohibit teaching how to say the names of the Most High (and Yeshua, Who is the same) specifically to avoid Sacred Names entanglements. It is also a respect thing.
 
One Law Messianic- we believe there is only one , and it applies to both Jew and Gentile. Most also believe that accepting Yeshua and committing to (as much ass you can- some, especially those of us in divided homes can't keep it all); but this commitment and worship of the God of Israel alone is and has always been how we are "saved." And this is how we are adopted into His household; joined with His people.

Messianic Jew- I took this to mean one born Jewish but who has accepted Yeshua.

Christian- those "other guys." 

Dan C

[bloodcoveredprincess]

Jul 28, 2018 14:59:29 GMT -8 alon said:

 
One Law Messianic- we believe there is only one , and it applies to both Jew and Gentile. Most also believe that accepting Yeshua and committing to (as much ass you can- some, especially those of us in divided homes can't keep it all); but this commitment and worship of the God of Israel alone is and has always been how we are "saved." And this is how we are adopted into His household; joined with His people.

 

Dan C

So.... I assume One Law Messianic is where you fall.... do those in this camp believe in the divinity of Jesus (under whichever name or pronunciation  they chose to use) and if so is there any vast difference to the understanding of the trinity than that of the other guys... you know those there Christian peeps

[alon]

Jul 29, 2018 5:32:58 GMT -8 bloodcoveredprincess said:

So.... I assume One Law Messianic is where you fall.... do those in this camp believe in the divinity of Jesus (under whichever name or pronunciation  they chose to use) and if so is there any vast difference to the understanding of the trinity than that of the other guys... you know those there Christian peeps

Yes, you assume correctly. But here again, there are different views. Some are Trinitarian. I used to be, but now believe when God said He is One, He meant it.

Here are some threads that may help explain my view and that of Rabbi Reuel:

theloveofgod.proboards.com/thread/3378/elohim-who-fills-universe-exist

theloveofgod.proboards.com/thread/4328/first-century-jew-believe-trinity

This next one has a lengthy statement by R Reuel, as well as some of my early Messianic understanding of the divinity of Yeshua:

theloveofgod.proboards.com/thread/1520/messiah-god-incarnate?page=2

When I first started in Messianic Judaism I was still a strict Trinitarian. However over time I came to see things differently. Change in our understanding, while it may come fast in many instances does not have to be that way. In fact, some understanding may come slowly after much research and many conversations. This topic is usually one of those. And if someone doesn't come away from the Trinitarian view I do not believe it will effect their salvation. But for me, being Messianic is all about God's truth. So I dug in, looked and passed everything I believed through the fire and this is the understanding I came away with.

The post by R Reuel on I believe page 2 of the last link is worth reading. It's a bit long, but has some good information.

Dan C

[bloodcoveredprincess]

thanks for the information... I have now put myself down as Hebrew Roots..... even though I just think of myself as a Christian.... In my journey of faith I have been very confused by lables.... the denominations within Christianity for instance.... evangelical (aren't we all called to evangelise) Charismatic (aren't we all granted gifts) the same goes for Hebrew Roots Christian.... don't we all have Hebrew Roots - whether we choose to recognise them or not....... personally I want everything.... I want that abundant life I was promised..... this side of heaven I will never know everything about God..... but wow I want to strive and dig and claw to get to every revelation of Him that He is willing for me to have

[Questor]

On 9/11/2015 I thought this: 

I have settled in comfortably somewhere between being a Ger Toshav, and being on my way to becoming a Ger Tsaddik, adding on line by line, precept by precept as the Ruach haKodesh leads me to.

I also believe that our views of Israel and Mashiach must inform our political opinion, and am at complete odds with the current American Administration on it's dealings with the Middle East, and Israel, and that our money and civic actions should support our interests in Israel being a strong and undivided state, with America resuming her full support of Israel.

I have also, foolishly, signed up for another year of both Biblical Hebrew, and Modern Hebrew at the same time, and wondering why I am so fascinated with the holy language, particularly when I have no desire to go to Israel until Yeshua returns. Of course, Abba may have other ideas but not being apt to convert, I cannot imagine how that would work.

I want to fulfill in full the prophecies that the Gentiles will assist the Israelites back to their own place as I was born, and remain a Gentile, however much I honor the Shabbats and Moedims, and take hold of the covenant as Isaiah has said:


1 Here is what Adonai says: “Observe justice, do what is right, for my salvation is close to coming, my righteousness to being revealed.”
2 Happy is the person who does this, anyone who grasps it firmly, who keeps Shabbat and does not profane it, and keeps himself from doing any evil.
3 A foreigner joining Adonai should not say, “Adonai will separate me from his people”; likewise the eunuch should not say, “I am only a dried-up tree.”
4 For here is what Adonai says: “As for the eunuchs who keep my Shabbats, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant:
5 in my house, within my walls, I will give them power and a name greater than sons and daughters; I will give him an everlasting name that will not be cut off.
6 “And the foreigners who join themselves to Adonai to serve him, to love the name of Adonai, and to be his workers, all who keep Shabbat and do not profane it, and hold fast to my covenant,
7 I will bring them to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer; their burnt offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar; for my house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
8 Adonai Elohim says, he who gathers Isra’el’s exiles: “There are yet others I will gather, besides those gathered already.”
"I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me."


9/30/2018

That post was not so long ago in the counting of years by the Ruach.  At that point I was 3 1/2 years into getting used to having no family except a distanced brother in a Northern state who refuses G-d, because of all the agony of life, and it's choices, and what the choices bring. 

My Father had died in June of 2012.  Three years were spent fighting the details of his estate while ill and also fighting my brother about every detail before I handed over the estate to him to finalize.  I lived with the lawsuits that ensued with his abrasive personality, and spent more time in the refuge of Messianic Judaism.  My thanks still to all of those who prayed me through that time.

My brother strangely bundled away all the papers, the letters in German, even most of the photographs.  But I had had a close relationship with my parents, and I began to ponder what had been. Things did not add up to the family 'identity'.

What I had been told of my parents and their families was very little, but that little still leaked dissonance around the edges. My mother had been raised a Catholic...but she disowned the church...any church.  My father was Presbyterian, and had even been an altar boy when he was 12, but spent all the services in the basement with the handyman, who also did not attend services, and my father never attended after his 13th birthday.  He occasionally attended weddings in churches but hated it. 

A daguerreotype of my great-great-grandfather during the Civil War that I could have been a twin of disappeared almost the moment I found it in the family records...along with most of the records.  The only difference between us was that he had blond hair and blue eyes.  It had been my only discovery that I could identify with, my family looking so unlike me, and my father so Mediterranean in appearance that he claimed to be a Native American, and brought stories into the family that my brother has been much in search of, but has never found.  I can point him to a certain graveyard but I doubt he would hear the suggestion.  

I once asked what my mother believed as she was dying in 2000, and I received a vague answer about nature and a change of subject. Every change of subject throughout all my years nearly but not entirely blotted out what had been in the family. It was if my parents had sprung from the stork that brought them, and human parent in name only. She died before I was healed enough from the car crash to ask more questions.

The Civil War photograph and the scandalous stories told of my great-great-grandfather Emil had much reassured me in my quest for an identity at nineteen, as I had been assuming I was adopted.  The stories turned out to be true...he actually did fight on both sides of the Civil war, and had won a gold-mine at cards that required an alliance to exploit properly, and some La Jolla coastline in California, both of which were stolen during the Depression quite legally...by Banks and Attorneys.  He had to travel to get the alliance but brought his bride's family back with him to South Dakota from the wilds of Pennsylvania! 

But there were no personal stories, and no people to connect them with, just information from a divorce between my father's parents...which in 1930's Michigan Society was scandalous...but at least preserved some fascinating knowledge of my grandmother's original family fortune, and thus more family names, but no family manifested between Emil and his great-grandson.  I thought it was the divorce...it turned out to be the Goldbloom's, and Goldberg's and Weinberg's, and Rodman's, with possibilities of the Grove's, the Otto's and the Graczols.

Yes, yes, I know.  So obvious when all the little information not obfuscated by quick jokes eventually escapes and acquires meaning.  The two-thirds share from my paternal grandmother's estate to my father with only a third to the Aunt whom she was closer to; the comment, "I always knew you were a Christian." from my Dad.  It sounded disapproving, but even when he began to believe that the Scriptures might be true, he stopped talking about the past. 

My father told me that he had 'said the words', and would even occasionally watch an internet personality I learned a lot of Greek from, but he never spoke of Yeshua, not even as Jesus, and barely managed to say the word 'G-d'  a bare three days before his death, and then only conversationally.   Until then, he kept telling me he didn't believe in coincidence...but it was never a clear statement of belief.  We battled to communicate around obstacles I could not see.

Then came a strange, all too clear, "Consider the Sabbath Day," from the Ruach, which is not unknown to me as I am afflicted with occasional visions and dreams.  I knew which Sabbath Day, although there are known to be two observed in the world.  It wasn't an order, but the beginning of a conversation...except the meds were getting in the way of hearing the rest.  Said meds are being eased out of, but only just in time to find out all I didn't really want to know.

There's a lot of information at Ancestry.Com, and I have just this week found out I have the Right of Return...providing I am not Mashiachim of course.  I am not Orthodox in my practice of Judaism and have no traditions as I am still laying down the ideas of my obedience just like everyone else.  The Ruach has been kind to not throw the information at me all in one blow...and it is a blow to be forced to adjust all your ideas.  I already live in the Greater Israel of Southern California...so why make aliyah when I have no close family or friends in the real Israel and am not welcome there anyway unless I hide Yeshua.  That sounds a bit too much like everything my parents did.

I did not know.  I never wanted to be Jewish, because it disturbs my sense of belonging as an Anglo Saxon.  I never met my Mother's father, who was English, yet his identity somehow flowed into me.  I never knew and cannot find what else he might have been, but I had liked being linked to the non-German part of me.  My mother may have been darkheaded but all her cousins were redheads, and everyone one of them died of fearing what might happen.  Cancer is in all of us, but fear aggravates it. 

What fear?  Catastrophizing, the Pshrinks call it, but why should a whole family catastrophize when they have been cradled in American wealth and a settled society?  Families are often beset by insanity, but the problem we had was too much silence. Then you read about Graz, on the border between Austria and Hungary, and begin to understand.  The powers that be in Graz are slow about letting Jews from the medieval period back into the city...when they let them back in the area at all.  They mostly don't, being robust Austro-Hungarian Catholics.  I don't blame my Mother's family for getting out in the late 1800's, but they brought too much of it with them.

I am Mashiachim, and I am a Jew.  Yeshua is my Root regardless of my heredity, but I can prove enough Jewishness to have to deal with it, along with the incredible silences that created my lack of knowledge. 

How do I deal with the Covenant?   I did not know I was a part of any, but I keep on being reminded...you still choose to walk with Yeshua, or you don't.  The rest is really a matter of family traditions...and I have neither.

[alon]

Questor, good to see you coming fully into Messianic Judaism! I knew you'd make it, bro! 

Dan C

[Questor]

Kicking and screaming, you mean! And with a curiously altered view of reality, having had found that the Sinai Covenant was attached to me at birth. Still, because of Yeshua, it doesn't matter...not so much because I am 'Jewish' (which I don't know...there are other tribes), but because it is everyone in Yeshua that is 'Israel', complete with the New Covenant in him to obey.

I don't know why it is so hard to see, but it is, even when we are walking with the Ruach to some degree. All that 'looking through a glass darkly' bit. We have faith, acting in faith produces a work in us (habits of obedience?) that end up sanctifying us even if we do not understand that the New Covenant is still the Old Covenant...just now written in our hearts, bit by bit until we are made incorruptible.

Thanks for being patient with me.