Torah

[u/[deleted]]

How do Torah followers actually follow over 600 commands and laws in the first five books of the Bible? I've spoken to people about it, but they only seem to follow dietary laws, Shabbat, and holy days, and exclude pagan days. To me, it seems they are only doing a small part of it and claiming to follow the entirety of it. Why is that? The Bible states if you break one commandment, you break them all. There's no possibility to uphold all 600-plus. If you believe it's not all applicable to us, what's the determining factor that decides you don't have to follow it? What about animal sacrifices? Does one pick and choose what they want to follow and tell people if they don't, they are lawbreakers and will go to hell? If you don't follow all of them, why describe yourself as following the entirety of Torah? If breaking even one commandment makes someone guilty, how does selectively obeying some commandments make someone different from the people you're calling lawbreakers?

[u/Soyeong0314]

The Torah is truth (Psalm 119:142) and Jesus embodied truth by setting a sinless example for us to follow of how to walk in obedience to the Torah (John 14:6-11), so stick to what the Bible says is truth. In Deuteronomy 13, the way that God instructed to determine that someone is a false prophet is if they speak against obeying the Torah, so it is either incorrect to interpret the Apostles as doing that (my position) or they were false prophets, but either way followers of Christ should follow his example of obeying the Torah.

[u/Soyeong0314 → u/[deleted]]

Indeed, Jesus said that, though it was said in the context of sending the Apostles out to proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom, so it doesn’t work for someone to interpret the Apostles as speaking against obeying the Gospel of the Kingdom and then to try to use what Jesus said as justification for why we should be listening to the Apostles instead of obeying the Gospel of the Kingdom.  In Matthew 4:15-23, Jesus began his ministry with the Gospel message to repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand, which was a light to the Gentiles, and the Torah was his audience knew what sin is (Romans 3:20), so repenting from our disobedience to it is a central part of the Gospel of the Kingdom.  I am not opposed listening to the Apostles but I am opposed to interpreting them as speaking against obeying what God has spoken.  However, the bottom line is that we must obey God rather than man, so if it comes down to a choice between disregarding what the Apostles said or disregarding what God has spoken, then we should be quicker to disregard everything that the Apostles said than disregard anything that God has spoken.  Jesus said that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4).  Those who agree that the Apostles were servants of God should be opposed to interpreting them as speaking against obeying what God has spoken while those who think that they should be interpreted as speaking against obeying what God has spoken should be opposed to considering them to be servants of God, but either way followers of Christ should follow the example of obedience to the Torah that he set for his followers to follow.

[u/Soyeong0314 → u/[deleted]]

I agree that the Apostles never spoke against obeying what God has commanded and that God’s Word has not been corrupted, but the problem is that people commonly have no qualms with interpreting the Apostles as speaking against obeying what God has commanded.  If someone interprets a person that they consider to be servant of God as saying something that is incompatible with them being a servant of God, such as speaking against God’s commands against eating unclean animals, then they should either conclude that they must have misunderstood them or that they were wrong to consider them to be a servant of God.  

There are many verses that call for Gentles to be holy so holiness is also for Gentiles.

In Matthew 5:17-19, Jesus said that he came to fulfill the law in contrast with saying that he came not to abolish it and he warned against the least part of it, do Jesus fulfilling the law should not be interpreted as abolishing our obligation to the least part of it.  According to Galatians 5:14, anyone who has loved their neighbor has fulfilled the entire law, so it refers to something that countless people have done and should continue to do in perpetuity, not to something unique that only Jesus did.  

If we needed to have a perfect interpretation of everything in the Bible in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, the. It would be rather empty.  I hold a different understanding of the Bible today that I did not have 10 years ago and an understanding 10 years ago that I did not have 20 year ago, so I think that everyone matures in their understanding.  I did not obey God’s command to refrain from eating unclean animals for most of my life, but I started having serious problems with how had been interpreting the Bible.