Why Boaz Michael thinks the Franklin Christian Ministerium chose to oppose the work of the First Fruits of Zion

“I mean, we have a Torah club group in Oil City, Pennsylvania that is now multiplied to 10 different Torah clubs in that area. So you see like a spiritual renewal taking place, which is incredible. But yet the pastors that have 25 people in their church are coming against the work of the Torah club because it's something that is not in alignment with their historical doctrines of their particular denominations." -Boaz Michael on Messiah Podcast #29, 05/13/23, starting at the 32:30 mark

Until a fellow Christian church leaders pointed it out to me, I didn't know that the First Fruits of Zion had responded at all in 2023 to the Franklin Christian Ministerium's effort to warn the Christian community about their unorthodox teachings.  There are several interesting things in this short statement: 

(1) The assumption that numeric success equals spiritual renewal.  Just because people are participating in something, it doesn't mean that God is or is not behind that effort.  For example: the Prosperity Gospel, Word of Faith, and New Apostolic Reformation movements are all growing rapidly in the world today, does that mean they're advancing the Kingdom of God?  Are they proof of spiritual renewal?  Popularity is not a measure of true discipleship.

(2) The sneering shot at the health of churches in Franklin based upon a numeric valuation.  Its an insult, but it isn't even a true one.  Truth be told, the pastors who signed our original statement serve churches that range from 25 to 350.  Some of them, like myself, serve as a solo pastor, others have multiple staff members.  Some have one service, again like us, and others have multiple services every Sunday to accommodate the crowd size.  But, and hear this clearly, church size is not proof of faithfulness (or unfaithfulness).  Church size is not proof of righteousness (or unrighteousness).  Church size is not proof of God's approval (or disapproval).  

(3) The assumption that a pastor of a small church doesn't need to be listened to.  This is a problem that affects the Church in America on many levels.  Almost all of the popular books, podcasts, YouTube channels, etc. are focused on pastors of mega-churches, that is, on "successful" pastors.  Those of us serving faithfully in the 98% of churches that are under 250 people rarely have our voices heard.  The results of this popularity-based leadership have been disastrous as popular pastor after popular pastor who had been lifted up crash and burn one after another because too many of them lacked either the moral qualifications of pastoral leadership, or the wisdom to teach biblically.  But they were popular, so people listened to them, they were popular, so people followed them.  If a pastor who has 9 people in his/her congregation is speaking God's Word prophetically, working within the parameters of the historic/apostolic/biblical orthodoxy of the Church, that man or woman should be listened to far more than the pastor who has 15,000 people in his/her congregation and bestselling books galore, but is perverting the Gospel with materialism, nationalism, or any number of false teachings that will not stand the test of time.

(4) The assumption that our opposition is based upon denominational doctrines.  This couldn't be further from the truth, the pastors who signed represent in no particular order: Anglican, Methodist, Episcopal, non-denominational, Lutheran, Church of God, Presbyterian, and of course Baptist churches.  There is nothing "particular" about our united opposition because we represent a broad spectrum of historic Christianity.  What does unite us in opposition is our common defense of the historic Gospel, the kind of teaching affirmed by the Nicene Creed or the Apostles' Creed.  This is a basic, fundamental, and historic defense of the Gospel.  It has nothing to do with the secondary issues that differentiate a Baptist from a Lutheran, and a Lutheran from a Methodist.  In fact, the objections we have stated are equally at the heart of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches as well, they are teachings that precede by 1,000 years the Great Schism and the Reformation by 1,500 years.  Why?  Because we object to FFOZ based upon the New Testament where God has preserved the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.  

Read the original letter that started all of this for yourself if you haven't, look at what we are objecting to: The Franklin Christian Ministerium's warning about the First Fruits of Zion 

{Note: Our objections would have been even stronger if we knew in Feb of 23 what we know about FFOZ in April of 24, what we knew then was enough to convince us all to reject it.}

The Trinity is not a "historic doctrine of our particular denominations."

Jesus' fulfillment of the Law as the ultimate and last sacrifice for humanity's sins is not a "historic doctrine of our particular denominations."

The Fruit of the Spirit as the test of true discipleship, not the keeping of the Law of Moses, is not a "historic doctrine of our particular denominations."

These teachings, and others like them, are what our ancestors in the faith believed, it was the Gospel they preached, and it was the truth they were willing to be martyred while believing rather than betray.

We didn't unite to oppose you, Boaz, over petty differences but over the core of the Gospel as it has been preached, received, and celebrated for 2,000 years.  

We didn't unite to oppose your organization, First Fruits of Zion, to protect our own turf, but the sheep that God has given us to shepherd and the spotless Bride of Jesus Christ, his Church.

The very first Torah Club lesson (covering Genesis 1:1-6:8) undermines the Trinity

The comment section of my YouTube channel's videos on the First Fruits of Zion over and over contain a variation on this complaint, "I'm in a Torah Club and it isn't anything like what you've described."  This is often followed by a polite, or not so polite, accusation that I'm a fool or a liar for claiming that the First Fruits of Zion teaches unorthodox things like denying the Trinity.  Those seminar videos that are being commented upon contain primary source quote after quote, but perhaps that isn't enough.  Having already shown two powerful examples of anti-Trinitarian statements from Daniel Lancaster {The original audio version of Daniel Lancaster's Only Begotten Son is even more heretical. and The boldly heretical anti-trinitarianism of Daniel Lancaster (One of the key leaders of the FFOZ and Torah Clubs) in his own words}, now the task becomes demonstrating that these ideas are contained within the Torah Club materials themselves.  We don't have to look far, Lesson #1 of The Beginning of Wisdom, copyright 2022, contains ideas that undermine the orthodox Christian belief that Jesus was fully God and fully Man, and that he pre-existed with the Father and the Spirit as the Word of God as part of the holy Trinity (John 1).

Page 21 of Lesson 1 follows after a long discussion of the personification of Wisdom (setting up what is to come) drawn in part from the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon, as well as the assertion of the pre-existence of the human soul before our conception (p. 13-14), "To become a human being, the spirit must leave its abode in the heavens and inhabit an earthly body."  As well as, "The spirit within you longs to return to the communion with God that it enjoyed before leaving heaven, entering a human conception, and becoming you."  

Another comment that I find about Torah Clubs is this, "The Church never taught me that!"  It is typically used with a sense of wonder at what the Torah Clubs are teaching, and/or scorn at the supposed laxity of the Church's educational efforts.  In this case, the Church certainly hasn't taught you that because the preexistence of the human soul was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon (AD 451) {For further explanation see: Could a person’s spirit have existed before their soul was created?} with this statement, "If anyone asserts the fabulous pre-existence of souls, and shall assert the monstrous restoration which follows from it: let him be anathema."  This discussion about pre-existent souls ought to raise a red flag among Bible believing Christians who are invited to participate in a Torah Club, but given that this is a secondary theological issue, perhaps for many it went unnoticed.  But what about the Trinity, surely playing fast and loose with the Trinity would send them running for the exits?

"The pre-existent, supernal wisdom of God through whom all things were created ultimately tabernacled among us in the person of the Messiah, Yeshua of Nazareth.  He is God's wisdom made flesh...Yeshua embodies God's wisdom in physical form." In the midst of this quote the Torah Club lesson cites 1 Corinthians 1:24 and 2:7, neither of which is saying that Jesus was God's personified wisdom, that's not what Paul was talking about there in either verse.  This is a oft-repeated pattern with FFOZ.  When the scriptures are quoted the citations often do not connect with how they're being used, and/or the verses are paraphrased or given with word-substitutions that change the meaning.  As to the quote itself, do you see one God with multiple modes/facets (heresy), or one God with three persons (orthodoxy)?  Wisdom isn't capitalized as it would be in English if they were writing about a person.  Also, "in the person" hints back at Lancaster's teaching (see the links above) that the man Jesus is only "indwelt" by God, he isn't directly spoken of as God.  "Yeshua embodies God's wisdom" is short of saying, "Jesus is God."  Hair-splitting?  Not at all.  Who Jesus is is a vital question.

"This concept helps us understand the prologue of the Gospel of John.  If we think of God's supernal word as the expression of His divine wisdom, we could understand the first few verses of the Gospel of John like this:

In the beginning was the Wisdom,

And the Wisdom was with God,

And the Wisdom was God.

It was in the beginning with God.

Everything was made to exist through Wisdom,

And nothing that was made to exist was made to exist except by it.

And the Wisdom became flesh,

And dwelt among us,

And we saw Wisdom's glory,

Glory as of the only begotten from the Father,

Full of grace and truth.

(Paraphrase of John 1:1-3, 14)"

I didn't know the followers of Jesus needed to paraphrase John 1 to understand the Apostle.  In John's actual text, it is clear that the Word has the agency of a person, in this paraphrase, however, the Wisdom is an "it," it is an "expression" not (really or fully) a person.  This is in keeping with the unorthodox views taught by FFOZ about the nature of God that most resembles the ancient heresy of Modalism.  

Either Jesus Christ is fully God, and fully human, or he is something less.

Either the Word of God is the 2nd person of the Trinity, with full personhood and eternal preexistence, or he is something less.

The very first Torah Club lesson is undermining the traditional and orthodox understanding of the Church about Jesus Christ.

I was asked to pray for a church that is being torn apart by a Torah Club

 

I was asked today to pray for a Baptist Church in Iowa ahead of expected turmoil this evening.  The pastoral leaders and I have been in conversation since February after they watched my initial YouTube video which explained why the Franklin Christian Ministerium had written a public letter warning about the teachings of the Torah Clubs.  As it turned out, this church in Iowa had a sizeable number of members who had been participating in their local Torah Club, a development that alarmed the leaders of the church.  They and I shared research on the First Fruits of Zion (the parent company of the Torah Clubs), talked through our findings, and in general supported each other in this processes of learning more about this false teaching and formulating a response.

Prayer is needed today because the pastor of the church and his wife are going to be meeting with a family that have been members of the church for 40 years, this family is a part of the group that recently began participating in a Torah Club, and when the pastoral leaders of the church (having fully researched the FFOZ) asked them to discontinue their participation in this unorthodox group, they refused.  Sadly, the report that I have received is that most of those from this church who now belong to a Torah Club  have refused to leave it when warned of the dangers.  The demonstration of unorthodox beliefs that should have sent chills down their spines, has fallen on deaf ears.  It is expected, sadly, that this family will be choosing to leave their church family at tonight's meeting.  Please pray for the hearts and minds of the pastoral leadership of this church, pray for repentance and reconciliation on the part of those who have gone astray.  Please pray that this doesn't split the church in the days ahead.

As someone called by God, and ordained by his Church, to fill the role of a shepherd of the sheep, it is deeply emotionally painful when the people we have invested our blood, sweat, and tears in decide that they would rather be somewhere else.  Even when that somewhere else is a church where you have a reasonable expectation that they will be nourished, it still hurts.  Believe me, I speak from experience.  But, when they leave and you know they're walking away from an orthodox understanding of the Gospel to chase after "another gospel" (that actually is recycling 1st century heresies), it doesn't just hurt, it is a wound that won't soon heal.  Shepherds are called to protect the sheep, to risk ourselves, sometimes literally, to protect them.  What do we do when they walk into danger of their own accord and refuse to heed our plea?

Stories like this one are the reason why I've devoted so much time to this issue, why I've written and spoke about it many times, and why I'm teaching a seminar on it starting on 9/11.  What is happening to the church in Iowa is the goal of First Fruits of Zion, it is what they believe must happen, and what they are doing their best to accomplish.  (During the seminar I'll show you the video clips that prove it.)  Please pray for them tonight and in the days ahead.  You don't need to know which Baptist Church in Iowa it is, God has known them since the day the church was founded, he will know who you are praying for as his heart aches for them too.   And please pray for me as I deliver my seminar, pray for the acceptance of this warning on the part of our Christian community in Venango County, and pray for those who have gone astray, may they return to the faith which our ancestors handed down to us.  Thank you.

** Update 9/5/23 **

The initial update I received from the leadership of the church in Iowa is that the family in question has decided to remain in fellowship with the church and continue dialogue on the relevant theological issues.  This openness to correction is an answer to prayer, may God continue to work in hearts and minds with respect to this family and the others from the church who have started down the unorthodox path of the Torah Clubs.  Thank you for your continued prayers on this matter.

Local Torah Club leaders offer to privately train church pastors using material from FFOZ whose authors admit amounts to a "different gospel."

 A local pastor who received the letter below shared it with me out of concern about this effort, I am sharing it here with the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of the local Torah Club leaders blacked-out in order to avoid both the potential of inadvertently advertising this club, and the possibility that anyone would (against my wishes) harass the individuals that are involved in spreading this theology.  I don't know how many local pastors received this invitation, I'm not surprised that I did not.  My response to this letter will be below.

1. There has been no effort (to my knowledge) by the local Torah Club leaders to respond to the Franklin Christian Ministerium's January letter.

As the letter states, the group's leaders decided to not respond to our very detailed warning filled with direct quotes of First Fruits of Zion published materials.  We, the collective pastors of the ministerium, representing diverse theological backgrounds, unanimously warned that this teaching is unorthodox.  Rather than drop the sponsorship of First Fruits of Zion upon learning more about the plans and purposes of the organization they are championing (more on that later), the local leadership has decided to instead offer the exact same materials in private lessons to local church pastors.

Since the publication of our letter, further extensive research has uncovered much more damning statements published by FFOZ, including video proof from the 2022 Malchut Conference {that will be shared in my upcoming seminar: Warnings against FFOZ seminar} that the leaders of this organization are aware that what they're teaching is untethered from 2,000 years of Church History (this is actually a selling point, they want to jettison the traditional/received/orthodox Gospel in favor of the understaning they alone posses), amounting to a "different gospel" to use Paul's terminology {Galatians 1:8  But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!}, AND that the primary target of their efforts are those already participating in local churches.  In other words, FFOZ is purposefully aiming to entice people from local churches with a different gospel, that's not my accusation, that's their business strategy.  

This is a significant charge, akin to the heretical teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons, but local Torah Club leaders are, as this letter demonstrates, sticking with the organization.

2. Having demonstrated a lack of understanding with respect to Christian orthodoxy, the local leadership has now offered to teach local pastors.

As James wrote, "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." (James 3:1, NIV)  I make no claim that the pastors of this county, myself included, need no further wisdom or understanding, we are fallible men and women who are prone to the same failings as the people in our congregations, but, and this really does matter, we have been called to serve our churches (through our various different process of training and ordination) and are responsible to the checks and balances on our beliefs and teachings that come from being part of a church.

To say that individuals who have left the oversight and discipline of a local church {as the local leaders offering to teach this class have done}, and are not therefore subject to any discipline for the apostasy of leaving orthodoxy behind, should set themselves up as teachers of church pastors is both shocking and highly dangerous.  This is NOT how church pastoral leaders gain further wisdom and knowledge as they shepherd Christ's sheep.

To call this letter's purpose bold is selling it short.

3. I have read the HaYesod workbook, it fully embraces the FFOZ ethos, it is in no way an example of orthodox Christian teaching.

In my upcoming seminar I will quote this workbook a number of times (45 times in the full primary source document I created that I will be condensing for the seminar!!), demonstrating over and over that is contains false teaching after false teaching.

4. The promise of not publicly revealing the name of pastors who decide to participate is an important concession.

Again, when you're leading an organization that was unanimously called-out by the local pastors of an entire ministerium, and disseminating materials from an organization that believes the Church has been preaching an incomplete Gospel throughout its entire history {And, in fact, that the Church should never have existed in the first place}, it certainly wouldn't be unwise for local church pastors to knowingly sit under this teaching, it is the kind of thing that would upon up a pastor to ecclesiastical discipline, and rightly so.  That being said, if any of the laity in our area are concerned that their pastor may be interested in learning from or joining this movement, please refer him/her to the many posts illustrating the dangers of FFOZ that I have written this year {clicking on the First Fruit of Zion tab in the topic list on the righthand side of the blog will bring them all up}.

5. While I appreciate that they "have no desire to continue in perpetuating harm within the body of Christ," and am willing to take this at face value, the further spread of this unorthodox theology WILL harm our local churches.

Sadly, I once considered the local Torah Club leaders to be, if not friends, certainly fellow laborers for the Kingdom of God {back when we worked together in the early days of Mustard Seed Missions, they left years ago}.  That changed when the Franklin Christian Ministerium pointed out the numerous heretical teachings of FFOZ, but these individuals chose to maintain (and further promote) this allegiance.  They chose FFOZ over the local church.  We have gone past the point of calling this a misunderstanding, it is a choice they have made, and continue to make.  At this point, my top priority has to be protecting my fellow Christians, both laity and clergy, from following this path into apostasy.  I didn't want it to come to this, neither did the pastors I have worked with to defend the Gospel, but we haven't been given that choice, we must act, we must warn you of the dangers this organization poses to the Bride of Christ.

Every house needs a firm foundation. The church has built its entire mission on an incomplete foundation on a partial gospel. This process began early, early, early when church theologians intentionally, intentionally stripped away the Jewish context of the New Testament. - Michael Boaz, founder and president of FFOZ, 2022 Malchut Conference.

This is what we're up against.

This is why your pastor needs your support and prayers.