The Journey - An Introduction

 The Journey

An Introduction

It all began in January 2016. Frankly, I was bored with the usual Bible reading schemes that would take you through the entire Bible in a year. So instead of starting at Genesis and ploughing through to the end of Revelation, I decided to do something a bit different. Reading the Gospels through in chronological order (by event, not date of writing) seemed just the thing. I even bought a chronological Bible. Seeing the whole story of the life of Christ from beginning to end was quite an eye-opener! 

His life fell into five distinct sections:

His early life
The beginning of His ministry
His rising popularity
The rising opposition
The culmination - His last week, death and final triumph in the resurrection

How had I not seen it before?

What's more, I was struck by just how Jewish it all was. For too many years to remember, I had considered that Christianity was - or at least, ought to be - much more Jewish than the western churches accepted or practised. Perhaps I had been right - maybe it all was really Jewish and not how western Christianity portrayed it at all.

Shortly after finishing the chronological gospels, I read a book called The Master by John Pollock.

 
Pollock had written a kind of dramatised documentary of the life of Jesus (the 'Master' of the title), based on the Gospel of John. At first I was sceptical, particularly because he started with John and named his parents as Salome and Zebedee. Now we are told explicitly who John's parents were - Elizabeth and Zacharias, so who on earth were Salome and Zebedee?

I had assumed the 'John' he was speaking about to be John the Baptist. After all, isn't that where the gospels start? My mistake - he was in fact speaking of John the Apostle! Having corrected to the relevant John, I then set about looking at who John's parents were. It was evident from early on that John had a brother called James and that they were the sons of Zebedee. But who was Salome?

I began to research as I continued reading - Salome, it turned out, was the sister of Mary, the mother of Jesus and was indeed married to Zebedee. This made John and James cousins of Jesus, just as John the Baptist was His cousin - which is where my initial confusion came from. Pollock mentioned that the John he was writing about was the cousin of Jesus and 'everyone knows' that John the Baptist was cousin to Jesus. No wonder I had made an assumption about which John was being spoken of. But the reality was John the Apostle (and therefore also James his brother) was also a cousin.

Once again, however, it wasn't just the details of the story that held my attention as the same themes as I had identified before were evident in this book too. And so was the complete Jewishness of the story being told.

At long last (having been a believer for many years at this point) I decided to do some proper research into the Jewishness of Jesus and the Jewish background of Christianity. I also looked into many of the things I had been taught as a Christian, such as the idea that Jesus had died to redeem us from the Law and the Old Testament was interesting background for the real story - the story of the emerging Christianity.

Rewind some two or three years. I had a friend of facebook who was a Christian. She had some friends who also claimed to be Christians, but they had some very strange teachings, such as Christians should be keeping the seventh day Sabbath and Christmas was something to be avoided! When I questioned them, they became quite annoyed and finally told me I was not a true believer and they were now 'shaking the dust from their sandals' at me! In other words, I wasn't worth their time and effort - not that they had made any great effort to teach me why their view was right and mine was wrong. I decided I wanted nothing to do with people like that and unfriended my friend so I didn't have to listen to their 'rubbish' any longer.

Imagine my complete surprise when my research led me down a track that made me realise they had in fact been right and I was wrong. It didn't make their attitude any less ungodly, but had they taken the time to teach instead of shout and criticise, maybe I would have come to this conclusion earlier!

In the course of my research, I discovered that that same year, 2016, Easter was celebrated a whole month after Passover. I had been taught that Easter was just the Christian name for Passover, so I wanted to understand how they could be so far apart if one was just the Christian substitute for the other. There were a few 'bunny trails', such as Easter actually being the spring fertility ritual of Ishtar (which suggestion has been firmly debunked), which itself led to internet and book pages teaching that there was paganism everywhere - in the name 'Jesus' (which was supposed to mean 'Hail Zeus'), the word 'church', the word 'Christian' and so on! Weeding out the tares from the wheat was no mean feat, but eventually, I came to realise that we should in fact be celebrating Passover at the proper time and not some man made holiday called 'Easter'.

I had three weeks to get ready! And I did everything wrong! Lamb stew - the Bible says it is to be roasted, not cooked in water! Getting rid of all the leaven - what exactly constituted 'leaven'?

As we approached the Passover meal itself, I was still studying and researching, when, like a bolt from the blue, I realised we should also be keeping the seventh day Sabbath and not the man made holy day of Sunday. There was not one verse in the New Testament that indicated the day had ever been changed.

Another three weeks passed and I was still studying, wondering how many of the other Old Testament laws we should still be keeping. It was then I announced out loud that 'at least my bacon's safe - after all, Jesus declared all foods clean....didn't He?' More research and I found out that no, in fact He didn't. I haven't eaten pork or bacon since that day.

This post is not the place to go into all the details, but rest assured, these issues and others will be addressed in future posts. Rather, this post is simply an introduction explaining how I got to where I am now theologically. 

At first, I was concerned lest I had got myself embroiled in some kind of cult. But further research suggests I have not. Am I what is called 'Hebrew Roots'? No! Nor am I part of the 'Two House' movement, 'sacred name' movement, or several other Gentile-led movements. There are theological issues with both of those groups, not least that one of them denies the deity of the Messiah. Do I see 'paganism everywhere'? No, but I recognise there are elements of paganism within the rituals of the church of today. With that in mind, do I still attend a Christian congregation on a Sunday? Yes, because there is no Sabbath keeping congregation anywhere near where I live, but that doesn't mean I forget the Sabbath on Saturday - as a family, we keep it at home rather than attending a place of worship. Do I still call myself a Christian? If being a Christian is defined as 'believing Jesus to be the Messiah', then yes, I'm a Christian, but with all the baggage that is associated with that word today, I tend not to think of myself as 'Christian' any longer. However, it also depends who I am speaking to - I more closely associate with Messianic Judaism (meaning my theology is 'Christian', in that I believe in Jesus, but my practice is Jewish), but not everyone understands that term, so for those people, yes I call myself Christian.

As the expression goes, 'it's complicated'!

It has been a long and winding road and I set out not knowing where it would lead me. It took me over 40 years to take the first step and I have been on the journey for over 6 years now. It has not been straightforward; there have been twists and turns, sometimes turning back on myself, sometimes heading through dark forests, but always heading towards the Light of the World.