- there are 70 faces to 
Post by alon on Nov 12, 2020 10:26:36 GMT -8
This is from an answer I gave someone to a question I was asked about apostleship:
Actually the church takes the term "apostle" from the Greek word "apostolos." That in turn was translated from the original Hebrew letters which used the term "shaliach tzibur," meaning "spokesman for the assembly." It's one of those words that mean the same in Hebrew and the pagan Greek. It is still an office in synagogues today, though I believe the Chazan fulfills those duties. It's also a secular legal term, kind of like a fiduciary and/or someone with power of attorney. Our problem is, as so often happens the meaning is lost in translation when English translators get ahold of it.
A shaliach was in effect a legal representative of the Chief Rabbi of whatever sect was sending him out. He was an evangelist, but also he could without reference to the Beit Din make halacha. Torah is absolute, immutable, but the Oral Torah where halacha is found is adaptable (or was before Rabbinic Judaism got ahold of it). Halacha is the minutia of how we walk out Torah. I like to give the example of when to start Shabbat observances. Evening to evening (sundown to sundown) is the biblical model, and what Jews and Messianics try to do. But say an Eskimo living in the Polar region gets converted. He only has 2 days each year! So do you tell him to just observe one big Shabbat every 7 years? No, you'd likely give him a calendar and a clock and say "Good luck!" A shaliach could make that call.
In a region where you were the only shaliach, you would make rulings like this all the time. But as more people were coming into the fellowship and the sect was growing more shaliachim would be appointed, and yes there is a heirarchy. They'd form a Beit Din; a court, but one which also made rulings on matters of faith. They would no longer just make rulings on their own. When Yeshua said:
Matthew 18:18-20 Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
Yeshua was not, as the church teaches talking to every true believer! Do you really think He’d give that authority to new believers? He was talking to His shaliachim! To bind here means to prohibit, and to loose is to allow. Who does that but officers of the synagogue? And if there is any doubt, go back to verse 16 where He says “on the testimony of two or three witnesses every matter may be confirmed.” Two or three witnesses is what was required in Torah to find someone guilty at court! These were NOT just any believers Yeshua was talking to. These were His legal representatives, His shaliachim.
Too many so called pastors preach their doctrines of prosperity and name it and claim it based on verses 18 and 19 taken completely out of context, and a false theology is built on them. Yet I can show this to most Christians in their own Bibles, and clear as it is Yeshua was not saying every new believer who asks for money will get it. He was talking to men He trusted to prayerfully search Torah for guidance in making halacha; to make right judgements when cases were brought before them for adjudication. He trusted these men to build up His assembly at a very turbulent time in Bible history!
Actually the church takes the term "apostle" from the Greek word "apostolos." That in turn was translated from the original Hebrew letters which used the term "shaliach tzibur," meaning "spokesman for the assembly." It's one of those words that mean the same in Hebrew and the pagan Greek. It is still an office in synagogues today, though I believe the Chazan fulfills those duties. It's also a secular legal term, kind of like a fiduciary and/or someone with power of attorney. Our problem is, as so often happens the meaning is lost in translation when English translators get ahold of it.
A shaliach was in effect a legal representative of the Chief Rabbi of whatever sect was sending him out. He was an evangelist, but also he could without reference to the Beit Din make halacha. Torah is absolute, immutable, but the Oral Torah where halacha is found is adaptable (or was before Rabbinic Judaism got ahold of it). Halacha is the minutia of how we walk out Torah. I like to give the example of when to start Shabbat observances. Evening to evening (sundown to sundown) is the biblical model, and what Jews and Messianics try to do. But say an Eskimo living in the Polar region gets converted. He only has 2 days each year! So do you tell him to just observe one big Shabbat every 7 years? No, you'd likely give him a calendar and a clock and say "Good luck!" A shaliach could make that call.
In a region where you were the only shaliach, you would make rulings like this all the time. But as more people were coming into the fellowship and the sect was growing more shaliachim would be appointed, and yes there is a heirarchy. They'd form a Beit Din; a court, but one which also made rulings on matters of faith. They would no longer just make rulings on their own. When Yeshua said:
Matthew 18:18-20 Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”
Yeshua was not, as the church teaches talking to every true believer! Do you really think He’d give that authority to new believers? He was talking to His shaliachim! To bind here means to prohibit, and to loose is to allow. Who does that but officers of the synagogue? And if there is any doubt, go back to verse 16 where He says “on the testimony of two or three witnesses every matter may be confirmed.” Two or three witnesses is what was required in Torah to find someone guilty at court! These were NOT just any believers Yeshua was talking to. These were His legal representatives, His shaliachim.
Too many so called pastors preach their doctrines of prosperity and name it and claim it based on verses 18 and 19 taken completely out of context, and a false theology is built on them. Yet I can show this to most Christians in their own Bibles, and clear as it is Yeshua was not saying every new believer who asks for money will get it. He was talking to men He trusted to prayerfully search Torah for guidance in making halacha; to make right judgements when cases were brought before them for adjudication. He trusted these men to build up His assembly at a very turbulent time in Bible history!
