Founder’s Blog

Reasoning Together

"Come now, let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18) the LORD said through his prophet Isaiah. Over the next few weeks and through the holiday season, I invite you to visit these FFOZ blogs and reason together with us at First Fruits of Zion as we talk through the biblical basis for our recent rejection of One Law theology that defined much of our ministry in past years.

At First Fruits of Zion, we love the peace and the brotherhood we all share in Messiah. We prefer enjoying Sabbath dinners to debating halachah. We prefer doing mitzvot to arguing about them. We respect that different people with honest and good intentions can still come to different conclusions about certain aspects of scripture, and we are OK with that. For that reason, we have always tried to stay in good relationship with all sectors of Messianic Judaism, even the extreme fringes. And we still want to do that. If you disagree with some theological position of ours, we want you to know that we respect your right to do so. We aren't infallible. We make lots of mistakes, and we continue to learn and grow by the leading of the Holy Spirit and the study of God's Word.

If you disagree with us, feel free to contact us about it and give us a piece of your mind, but don't feel as if you have to burn our books. Remember, our mission statement has not changed. We remain more committed than ever to teaching the Torah and its way of life fully centered on Messiah to today's people of God. We believe that the Sabbath, the festivals, and the dietary laws are for all of God's people, not just the Jewish people. We remain committed to restoring the Jewish roots of Christianity, and we seek to see Gentile believers take on the as much of yoke of Torah in imitation of our Master as they are able. But we find the Bible makes a big difference between Jewish and Gentile obligation to Torah.

Trying to be Smart

Messianic Judaism is a movement of restoration to a proper understanding of the Scriptures. We pride ourselves on our interpretive models. It sounds fancy to say that we use a historical, contextual, and grammatical hermeneutic. It only means that, to get meaning of our Scriptures, we have learned the value of understanding the Bible and interpreting it from within its context and culture, analyzing it from the original languages. All of this makes us feel clever.

We are also familiar with alternative texts and manuscript traditions. Sometimes, we are able to thwart someone's argument by pulling out a "textual variant" or by saying something that makes us sound intimidating like, "Would you prefer me to use the Textus Receptus, or the majority text?"

But really, at the end of the day, the majority of us are biblical literalists--to sound smart we would say, "Sola Scriptura," which is Latin for "by scripture alone." The Sola Scriptura model requires that primary doctrine be derived directly from Scripture. The Bible is sufficient. It really is as simple as saying, "The Bible says it; I believe it; that settles it."

In the Messianic movement, most of us are comfortable with different hermeneutical models. Messianic teachers use them all to establish the point they are trying to make on any given text. The one thing that is consistent in our use of these models is our inconsistency. At times Messianic leaders demand a hyper-literal reading, at other times we might say, "Well you have to understand it within in the culture, " and at other times, we might resort to intensive grammatical analysis to force weighty meaning onto an obscure and incidental part of speech.

Under the Authority of the Bible

At the ministry of First Fruits of Zion, our single mode of operation has always been simply, "to do what the Bible says." We have presented our message through books, journals, and commentaries. We are grateful to God for giving us a platform to teach his people. We are blessed to have a voice to defend Yeshua as the hope and glory of Israel through ministry of Vine of David and to defend the role and place of the Torah in the lives of all of God's people through the work of First Fruits of Zion. We are excited about our mission and work tirelessly to spread the truth of God's word to everyone, Jew and Gentile.

We are honored to join the voice of others working towards the restoration of the Messiah and the Torah. Two generations ago, Abram Poljak, an early pioneer of Messianic Judaism said,

If the divine revelation to Israel is an objective reality and if Yeshua is the promised Messiah, then the present day Jewish-Christian movement is of great historical significance and a sign of the times. I believe this to be the case....Our gaze is not fixed on our own day, but upon the centuries. We look to the end.

To us, that's what it's all about.

"One Law" and the Messianic Gentile

In Messiah Journal 101's article, "'One Law' and the Messianic Gentile," First Fruits of Zion transparently shared our theological journey regarding the relationship between Jews, Gentile believers and their respective obligations to the laws of Torah. We presented a case for returning to the literal apostolic rule and standard on this issue, sticking close to the ruling of Acts 15 regarding the Gentile believers' place within Israel and their obligations to Torah. We called this the "Divine Invitation" position.

In a nutshell, the article said: "Gentile believers are not obligated to all of the same aspects of Torah as the Jewish people are, but they are invited to take hold of the heritage of Torah because they have been grafted into Israel and are part of the greater commonwealth of Israel."

The article has created great concern. Some of our readers reject the new position, and some have washed their hands of this ministry. A few have already contacted us to cancel all of their subscriptions. Based on the amount of feedback we have received, it seems that we have touched off a firestorm of Messianic Gentile indignation.

Not the Best Article

I wish that we could have the opportunity to write the article, "One Law and the Messianic Gentile" again. As I look at all of the responses we have received it has been clear to me that many readers became lost and frustrated. The article is too long. It took 24 pages for us to say a very simple thing.

Because we presented an extended article sharing our journey, our points of concern with the One Law position, the bad fruits, the good fruits, and the advantages of the apostolic-Acts 15-Divine Invitation approach to Gentiles, the article lost its strength. Readers got bogged down and missed the main point: This is what the Bible says, and we need to make our theology conform to the Bible. If I could re-write the article, I would make it shorter, solely presenting our single reason for this theological shift: the Bible.

None of us at FFOZ wanted to believe that One Law could be wrong. It felt paralyzing to even think that we had theologically gone off the tracks. We resisted it and wrestled with it for years, but when it came time to re-do HaYesod, we knew we had to deal with the issue.

FFOZ Sold Out

Unfortunately, some of our readers assumed that we had less than biblical intentions in making this shift. Some of our long time friends, faithful and loyal readers were outraged by the article. The article opened us up for a firestorm of accusations. Here are some of those accusations:

1. FFOZ sold out to anti-Torah church theology
2. FFOZ sold out to rabbinic Judaism
3. FFOZ is doing this as a marketing ploy to sell more books
4. FFOZ sold out to be accepted in the broader Messianic Jewish community
5. FFOZ has fallen under the influence of the UMJC
6. FFOZ has fallen under the influence of the MIA!?!
7. FFOZ has been brainwashed by rabbinics.
8. FFOZ is embracing ecumenicalism and moral relativism.
9. FFOZ is teaching that there are two laws.
10. FFOZ has been lead astray--after all, these are the last days.

My brothers and sisters in Messiah, I appeal to you. Hear me. None of these allegations are true. Honestly the accusation of this being some type of plan to gain a greater audience, sell more books, generate greater revenues or win more friends is offensive, hurtful and completely unfounded.

Organizationally, we knew that this was going to hurt the ministry's bottom line, big time. We braced for the results of being honest and forthright with our constituents. The financial impact already promises to be significant. Not meaning to sound alarmist, but this single theological shift could actually financially sink our ministry because we already operate on a shoestring with little margin. The fiscally smart thing to do would have been to keep our mouths shut, and we knew that.

So let me ask you, why would we jeopardize our entire ministry, the work of the kingdom, our livelihoods, and the very bread on our tables? Because we were wrong about "One Law." We erred, and as Bible teachers, we had an obligation to correct that.

Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. (James 3:1)

We have read, discussed, and considered all the notes, emails, challenges, online position papers, and responses to the article. Everyone's thoughts and opinions on the matter are important to us. We have not dismissed any of them. In each case, we have tried to look at the questions objectively and dispassionately, and in each case, the process has strengthened our resolve. We believe that the divine invitation model is deeply biblical, balanced, fair, and true. It feels as if the scales have fallen from our eyes.

Over the next few weeks we will be presenting our biblical, exegetical argument for Divine Invitation here at ffoz.org. We will also be bringing the commentaries and scholarship of the greatest Jewish, Messianic Jewish, and Hebrew Roots scholars of the past and present to hear what they teach about these questions.

In honest humility, we will be doing our best to show you what we have learned and where we went wrong. You can read our arguments, consider them, pray about them, and then take them or leave them. Again, we aren't infallible. We openly admit to being wrong in the past, and we are always open to change through biblical correction. We don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, and we certainly don't want to break relationship over a debatable question, but we do want to be clear about the biblical basis for our decision.

Our mission remains clear, unchanged, and intact: "Teaching the Torah, and its way of life, fully centered on the Messiah, to today's people of God." We believe the divine invitation model strengthens our biblical appeal to all of God's people to embrace the fullness of Messiah, their place within Israel, and the role and necessity for the Torah. But even if it did not, we would espouse it because, according to our best understanding of the Bible, divine invitation is the Sola Scriptura answer. Divine invitation is the result of our best attempt at interpreting the Bible through a historical, contextual, and grammatical hermeneutic.

Here are some of the passages for discussion you can expect to see us rolling out onto the website blogs in the next few weeks and through the holidays:

1. Exodus 12:49
2. Numbers 15:16-29
3. Matthew 5:17
4. Matthew 28:20
5. Acts 15
6. Acts 21:20-25
7. Romans 2:27-29
8. Romans 11:17
9. Romans 14
10. 1 Corinthians 7:19
11. Galatians
12. Colossians 2:16
13. Ephesians 2:11-16
14. 1 John 3:4-5
15. 1 John 5:2-3
16. Revelation 14:12

As time allows, we will post blogs like this one covering this list of scriptures and related topics. We'll try to keep them short and easily digestible. For the most part, each passage is self-explanatory when it is simply read at face value. They should not require 24-page papers. It's just what the Bible says.

I know that First Fruits of Zion readers are Bible people. You aren't afraid to look at the Bible honestly, and you give the Bible authority, even when it is uncomfortable to do so. For that reason, I appeal to you, "Come now, let us reason together" (Isaiah 1:18). Hold us up in your prayers even as we also daily pray for you.

About the Author: Boaz Michael is the President and Founder of First Fruits of Zion.