About Torah Perspective

I've been doing this blog since August of 2005. After four years of writing 100's of articles and receiving approximately 1000 - 1500 visits per month, it's probably a good idea to explain why I'm writing this where I'm coming from.

I know many people read this blog and most I never hear from. I'm sure there are people I know that read it and will never tell me that they do, including family. Depending on when you started reading, and whether you've gone back to read other posts, you probably don't know really where I'm coming from and why I do what I do and why I even use some of the words and names that seem foreign to most people who profess to follow the God of the Bible.

Many people immediately come to the conclusion that I've "gone Jewish," or something like that. I assure you I haven't gone Jewish. If you read the articles you will see that I deal with that issue quite often. I believe I've just become more Biblical in my belief that results in a more Biblical life and practice.

Let me give you some biographical information. I'm 54 years old. I was born in East Kentucky and my mom and dad moved us kids to Kendallville, Indiana when I turned ten years old. My ethnic heritage is English/Irish/Scot/German, with, I was told by Mom, some Cherokee American Indian mixed in. I wish I knew that for sure. It's kind of cool to think it might be, however. But, needless to say, I have no Israelite blood flowing through my veins, at least that I'm aware of. And I can assure you I have not become a proselyte to Israel. AND, to the chagrin of many in the Messianic Jewish movement that I talk to, I'm not grafted into Israel. In short, I'm grafted in Messiah Yeshua.

Messiah Yeshua? Yes. That's HIS real name and title - who HE is. But I didn't always refer to HIM as Yeshua Messiah.

I was raised the son of an Old Regular Baptist preacher. The Old Regular Baptist is a mixed bag of reformed theology, Celtic lore, American Indian mysticism, and just plain illiterate traditions. I never became involved in that expression of religion, but I knew a lot about it. My dad, and his brothers were all preachers. On my mom's side most of her uncles were preachers. We were around it all our lives. I was never really drawn to it. I saw a lot of hypocrisy in it, and much of it didn't make sense to me.

In 1987 I began to seek God. My marriage was falling apart, all my fault, and I had come to the end of myself, at least at that point in my life. After spending most of my adult life chasing the elusive dream of stardom in the music business I had left my marriage on the edge of total loss. After a period of several months I prayed and accepted the LORD in a phone conversation with a man from Jerry Falwell's ministry out in Virginia. That began my spiritual journey.

I was on fire for the LORD. I couldn't get enough of HIS Word. I had a zeal to tell others about HIM and I wanted to follow HIM radically! It was then that I became involved in the professing church. I attended a church in Hamilton, Indiana, just a couple of weeks after I encountered the LORD. It wasn't long before other church members around me were telling me, "You'll settle down soon. Just relax." And then I'd be set straight on how a "Christian" is supposed to live. Before long I was settled down. In fact, I settled! I settled for the traditional church perspective and my zeal for the Word waned and my zeal for prayer and revelation all diminished. I began to drift away.

In 1990 I stopped attending the church in Hamilton because I saw the wrong focus on money and they weren't as interested in teaching the Bible as much as entertainment and money to build a bigger church. I was disillusioned to say the least. I didn't attend a church for about a year and a half. Then I felt I needed to be in church. I kept reading the Bible on my own, but I knew I needed to be with other believers, so I began to look.

I went to the church across the street from us in Hudson, Indiana. It was dry and dust and so devoid of the Word that we lasted for about two Sundays. A little while later we got involved with a small fellowship in Ashley and remained there for a year or so. It was full of nepotism and devoid of the Word. Sin was overlooked for the sake of nepotism and numbers. We left there. Then we spent a lot of time watching TV preachers and searching and always coming up empty. Then we became involved with a start up ministry that was meeting in a building at Buck Lake Ranch, just outside Angola, Indiana. This didn't last long because the pastor had child molesting charges pending against him, and, per all the other things we had experienced, was very shallow in the Word department.

Let me explain where I'm coming from. A few years before I met the LORD, my friend and I, who played in the same band together, were talking on the early morning drive home from a gig in Angola. We talked about a lot of things. One of them was religion. We both said, if we ever do go into religion we're going to give everything to it. We didn't want to be like most people we had seen in the church; professing to be Christians but living like hell. I really meant that, and I still do. I want to give it my all. I want to know HIM for who HE really is, not who the church, who operates more on commentary and tradition tell me HE is.

In August 1993 our family landed at Maranatha Christian Fellowship, in Howe, Indiana. The pastor, now one of my closest friends, taught verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book, all the way through the Bible. The church was in fellowship with Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, California - one of the largest church groups in the country. But as time went on I still wasn't finding the Truth I so desperately sought. I was closer, but still not there. I wasn't satisfied with my walk. I read what Scripture said about freedom from sin. Victory over sin seemed like an unobtainable goal to me. But Paul said we were set free from sin. So many things didn't add up when I read the whole Bible in context. But I couldn't find the key to unlock the door. It was like a veil covered my ears, eyes, and heart when I read the text of Scripture. It was because I was reading it through the filter of man's tradition.

I learned that I was doing what I was taught by man. I was reading the Scripture and force fitting it into church tradition. After all, the church fathers couldn't be wrong, could they? Well, yes the could, and they were. Not according to my word, but according to HIS Word. Jeremiah Sixteen prophesies a time when the gentiles would come to the LORD and tell HIM that "our fathers have handed us lies to serve gods that are no gods at all." I came to that conclusion. It was after I came to that conclusion that I saw that verse and was awestruck at the work of the Spirit to reveal that to me. It's proof that the Spirit indeed only speaks the Words of Yeshua, and Yahweh, in fact the Elohim. Yeshua is the Son, Yahweh, the Father, and the Holy Spirit is called Holy Ruach. Together they make up the Godhead, in Hebrew it is Elohim. These are not just names of Jewish gods. They are the names and attributes of the ONE True God of the Bible.

I began to read Torah (the first five books) the Prophets, the Writings of Psalms, Proverbs, and the historical books, such as Joshua, Ruth, the Kings, Chronicles, etc. I began to see Elohim for who HE really is. I began to see the foundation for what I had been reading in the New Testament, which I prefer to call the Apostolic Scriptures. I prefer to call Genesis through Malachi, the Holy Scriptures, as Paul did in 2nd Timothy 3, and the Hebrew Scriptures. It is more accurate than Old Testament, as opposed to New Testament.

All of a sudden the things I read in the Apostolic Scriptures came alive. I began to see the context of the Jesus', Paul, Peter, James, John, and the others' quotes from the Tenakh. The Tenakh is a term that means all the so-called Old Testament. I sometimes use that terms as well, so don't get freaked. I'm talking about the Bible. Actually the entire so-called Old Testament is usually referred to as Torah. But in short, for the first time, the Bible began to make sense.

I began to read in several books of the Holy Scriptures that Yahweh hated sun worship and that HE forbade mixing the pagan worship practices with HIS prescribed worship to HIMSELF. In fact, if you realize that God is One, just as Scripture says, then it is Yeshua, or Jesus who hates this same thing. To seal the deal Jesus says that HE was there in the beginning, in fact before the beginning. Paul and John tell us HE is the Creator. Paul also tells us HE was the ONE at Sinai that the people refused to hear and complained against. Peter tells us that Yeshua was the ONE who spoke to the Prophets. And then I read that Moses was a prophet. Yeshua spoke to Moses! HE is the Lawgiver. What we read in Torah is the Word of Yeshua, who does not change. I learned that in Malachi and in the Apostolic Scriptures. I'm sure you've either read that or been told that. You can go look it up and read it yourself. So in light of all that I knew that if I was going to follow Yeshua I needed to know what HE said. I began to study and apply HIS Word to my life.

I learned that the holidays observed by the professing church, that also all those who were vehemently opposed to Jesus observed, were in fact those pagan practices. Christmas, Easter, Sunday Sabbath, and much more were simply pagan practices adopted by the Catholic church, in opposition to Scripture. In fact I learned that the Catholic church brags about them having the authority to change Sabbath from the real Scripture ordained Sabbath, seventh day, to the venerable day of the sun god, Mithra - Sunday! What were they/I protesting? Most of the practices of the professing church, I learned, were pagan in origin, AND HE said don't do it!

I learned then of HIS feasts that spoke of HIS plan of redemption. These and all of Torah Instruction is according to the pattern of what is in Heaven. It gives us the accurate picture of Elohim, and HIS plan for man. The pagan holidays only speak of pagan gods. So I began to observe them. BUT, I don't sacrifice. Yeshua is the Sacrifice and the Great High Priest, and we are HIS Temple. But you will have to read some previous posts to learn more... no time to get into all that now.

I've been at this for a few years now. There's so much that I've learned and unlearned. It's hard to boil it down to a short article. But I pray you will be exhorted by my articles to investigate what HE said and while you're at it look at the traditional church model in light of HIS Torah.

Now I can hear it now. Many are thinking, all you care about are the first five books of the Bible. That's not true. Let me explain what I believe so you will know and not be left to conjecture or rumor or misinformation.

I believe all the Scriptures are accurate from Genesis to Revelation. I believe the message is the same from beginning to end. I believe that Torah is specifically the Word of Elohim - God. I believe that the Prophets preached repentance to Torah. I believe that Jesus did, and Paul, and Peter, and so on. Everything written after the Torah, called the Law of Moses, and equally the Law of God, by Jesus - Yeshua HIMSELF, is the foundation for all Scripture and everything we read will line up with Torah. The problem is that we have been taught that Torah is irrelevant to a New Testament believer. I believe that if you take the New Testament out of context with the foundational Scriptures of Torah you will not understand it. You will have constructed a Messiah that won't fit Torah. That's why you can't understand Torah. Your Jesus doesn't fit the Scripture! Think about it. Your Jesus doesn't fit Scripture. Mine didn't either. There's a lot wrong with that picture. If my Jesus doesn't fit Scripture then HE can't be the Messiah/Prophet foretold in Scripture!

So I am trying to be more Biblical. I'm examining what I've always believed, handed down by men, in light of the Truth of the Word. That's all! But I realize that is big. Because the ramifications of the Light shining on tradition that doesn't fit Scripture means I have to change. We, as people, hate change. We lose friends, family and stature. I lost my job of seven years in Christian radio. Our fellowship was disfellowshipped. I have family that think I'm out of my mind and a heretic, who refuse to look at their lives in light of Scripture.

Also, I'm not saved by obeying Torah! NO! I obey Torah because I'm saved. We read that the Spirit's job in the operation of the New Covenant grace, is to write the Torah on our hearts, put it in our minds, and cause us to walk in HIS statutes and keep HIS commandments. It proves I'm saved, to me, not to God who already knows. It's how I know if I've sinned. Sin is defined as transgressing God's commandments, or lawlessness by John and Jesus.

I don't know it all, but I do know more than I did. I haven't arrived and I'm not sinless. But I'm no longer a slave to sin. I can have victory over sin, or lawlessness. I can do now what I could not do before; I can obey, if I submit to HIS Work of grace. It is HIM working in me. I can't boast about that, only in that I know HIM and HE knows me.

There is so much and I would love to talk about it at even more length but time and space won't permit in one sitting. But, if you will read the articles that are on here, and if you will continue to read, in light of what I've shared, you will gain understanding.

You can find more info including videos that Pastor Ron and I have done at Messiah Fellowship Online. Find the link to the left of the page. We are working on a contextual study through Galatians that will explain a lot of what we believe. I hope you will avail yourself to it. It's free. So are the other videos. There is a series that explains, in overview who we are and what we believe as well. I ask you, please, don't take other people's word for who they say we are or what we/I believe. Learn for yourself. Ask me. I'll be happy to tell you. It is what I'm called to do.

If you really love Yeshua, and want to follow HIM with no reservation, why would you not want to listen to a man who is like-minded? Why would you not be willing to lay your tradition down and examine it in light of the Truth? I pray you will. I love you and my desire is that you come to the knowledge of the Truth - the whole counsel of Yahweh. Yeshua said, you shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free.

As Paul's desire was for HIS Jewish brothers who were rejecting the Messiah for their traditions, I feel the same way about my brothers and sisters in the professing church. In Revelation we see the exhortation to "Come out of her, MY people." HE'S talking about this Babylonish religious expression. It is the professing Christian/Messianic Judaism expression we see today. It has it's foundations in the paganism of Egypt and Babylon and it will keep the adherents from the kingdom. I don't want to miss HIM and I don't want you to either.

Thanks for listening. bfkidd@ligtel.com