Beginning of Wisdom (Torah Club) lesson #45: Gnostic mysticism, Sabbath idolatry, and elevating heretical extra-biblical sources

There are many topics connected to our faith about which the average Christians is mostly or entirely ignorant.  Some of that is a failure of education/discipleship, but much of it is simply the breadth and the depth of ideas and concepts that touch on the faith that steers our lives.  In all honestly, even scholars who spend their whole lives in study are a long way from knowing everything.  With that in mind, we shouldn't be surprised that people in Torah Clubs don't run away as soon as Daniel Lancaster and FFOZ starts to teach them Gnostic mysticism.  Our ancestors in the faith, however, who spent generations fighting against the malign influence of that philosophy during the 2nd to 4th centuries would have recoiled in horror because they knew how dangerous it was.  FFOZ is taking advantage of our collective ignorance of Early Church history, and particularly of the heresies that the Early Church rejected.  That needs to end.

Lesson 45, page 5
"in the version of the story told in the Midrash Rabbah, the LORD explains, "If you are buried here, near those who died in the wilderness, then they will enter the land for your sake at the time of the resurrection of the dead."

The primary heretical error in this lesson is gnostic mysticism, but with FFOZ there is typically room for several other dangerous ideas.  Here we see that they are uncritically citing the Midrash Rabbah to concur with its (false) assertion that the Israelites who died in the wilderness because of unbelief will be welcomed into the Promised Land (i.e. Heaven) by God because of the faithfulness of Moses.  This isn't the first time that FFOZ has taught that human beings can share salvific merit with others, an idea utterly rejected by the Apostle Paul, particularly in Romans.  This isn't the first time they've elevated Moses' exploits to the level of hero-worship.  There is nothing wrong with citing Jewish rabbinical teaching to illustrate a point, however, the uncritical way in which Lancaster does this leads to dangerous errors like this one.

Lesson 45, page 9
"Any person who seeks the LORD with repentance, searching for Him with heart and soul, will find Him and receive the forgiveness of sins.  The LORD will gather that soul in with His people to save it from the coming day of fire."

If not for my research into FFOZ, I would probably assume that this is an orthodox statement by assuming that when they say, "seeks the LORD" they mean in this New Covenant era, "any person accepts Jesus as Savior."  But that's not what this is.  This isn't simply a statement expressing confidence in the Grace of God to ensure Gospel acceptance on the part of all who seek him.  Instead, we are once again seeing FFOZ toy with ideas of Universalism.  We've already noted the times that FFOZ has hinted that Jews don't need Jesus because they're already the Chosen People, here they are hinting at an even further extension by saying that some who will be saved won't even be a part of "His people."  Word choices matter in theology.  When the one being saved isn't spoken of as being a part of God's people, but instead as being "with" them, it raises eyebrows.  When the person/organization making such a statement is already known to subvert the Gospel, there is apt reason to be concerned.  Read the statement again, compare it to Jesus' own words, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but my me." (John 14:6).  

Lesson 45, page 14
"The early Jewish believers in Yeshua taught the same concepts.  The collection of teachings and fictionalized narratives titled Clementine Homilies."

Thus Lancaster elevates the Clementine Homilies to the level of a trusted, even authoritative source.  See how simple that was?  All he needed to do was connect it in one sentence to Jewish followers of Jesus, no further explanation needed.  Except we really need one.  The Clementine Homilies were not written by Clementine of Rome, as with many ancient manuscripts the name of someone famous is used to lend authenticity or weight.  While the original was written earlier, our only surviving version dates from the 5th century.  The Early Church historian Eusebius dismissed it in this manner, "And now some have only the other day brought forward other wordy and lengthy compositions as being Clement's, containing dialogues of Peter and Appion, of which there is absolutely no mention in the ancients." (Ecclesiastical History, 3.38)

What does this collection of writings contain?  Among other things through a gnostic and Arian influence it proclaims that Jews don't need Jesus to be saved and portrays Jesus primarily as the final prophet to the Jewish people rather than as the savior of the world.  If, then, the Clementine Homilies is an accurate reflection of what some of Jesus' followers believed in that era, it shows them to be disciples with a dangerously flawed theology, albeit one that aligns with the false teachings that FFOZ is currently selling.

So, what is it from the Clementine Homilies that FFOZ wants its followers to embrace?

Lesson 45, page 17
"God remains the stationary point from which all things emanate and to which all return.  He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.  Unmoving and at rest at the center.  God is outside the flow of time like the infinite world to come."
"This then is the mystery of the hebdomad.  For He Himself is the rest of the whole who grants Himself as a rest to those who imitate His greatness within their little measure. (Clementine Homilies)"

Gnostic mysticism is the answer.  Gnostic philosophy is NOT compatible with faith in Jesus Christ.  The attempt was made to meld them together by Gnostics, but we can see that combination being rejected even in its earliest form in 1 John.  Long story short, the Gnostics believed that the divine and physical realms could not touch because it is matter that is corrupted but spirit that is pure.  The result is to remove God from direct connection to this world, a real problem for those who believe in the Incarnation.

Lesson 45, page 17b
"A hebdomad is a group of seven.  The significance and hidden meaning behind all of the Bible's sequences of seven, including the seven days of creation and the seven days of the week, are explained in the idea sketched out above.  The hebdomad concept also gives us a tool to visualize the seven heavens differently."

In addition to a flawed cosmology, Gnosticism is also built upon the idea of "hidden" or "secret" knowledge available only to a select few.  You've probably never heard of a hebdomad unless you're a real math geek.  You can look in vain through the entirety of sacred scripture without finding anything like this, but that's of little concern to Gnostic mysticism.  Why?  Because those of us who follow Jesus through orthodox methods have limited ourselves to the divine revelation of scripture, and the mystics are seeking the answers within themselves.  If the answers are within, they're not coming from God.  If the answers are within, we are the ultimate authority not God.  Mysticism, Gnostic or otherwise, has never been the path to Truth given by God to humanity.  God reveals to us what we need to know, it is made plain by God, not hidden away.

Why would FFOZ embrace mysticism?  In addition to wanting to elevate the Jewish mysticism of Kabbalah (which they have done numerous times in Torah Club materials), this sort of unfettered search for Truth that is not bound by Holy Scripture has great appeal to those who have embraced answers that are contradicted by the Word of God.  When you are proclaiming that the Church was never meant to exist and that those who follow Jesus have been in gross error for 2,000 years, it helps to embrace a methodology like this one that allows for "truth" to come from new sources, particularly from yourself.

Lesson 45, page 18
"The homily says that God 'grants Himself as a rest to those who imitate His greatness within their little measure.'  That is to say, those who rest on the Sabbath do so as a small token of rest in imitation of God's perfect rest at the center point of existence.  As a reward, God grants a portion of His own presence."

Another reason beyond mysticism that FFOZ wants its followers to treat the Clementine Homilies as authoritative is that it contains the type of Sabbath idolatry that they themselves are promoting.  Sabbath theology is a too big of a topic to do justice to here, but one thing that we can know for sure: Keeping the Sabbath does not earn you a "portion" of God's "own presence."  The mysticism being promoted here leaves no room for Sabbath keeping to be optional.  It is being described as if it is the key to communion with God.

The truth is, Jesus is how we connect to God in the New Covenant, not the Sabbath.  The Holy Spirit was given to every person redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, we have God's Spirit within us, we don't need a mystical Sabbath experience to get it.  When Paul writes of our need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, that is, our need to have an increased presence of God in our lives, he never once mentions Sabbath keeping as having anything to do with it.

Lesson 45, page 19
"Entering the Sabbath should be like entering a state of being - specifically, God's Being - in which there is nothing unfinished, nothing incomplete, no future or past, nothing but the eternal now of perfect peace and bliss.  In that respect, the celebration and observance of the Sabbath offer a taste of the transcendent peace of simple participation in the Oneness of God."

Yeah, I'm going to pass on the idea that Sabbath keeping is the path to "participation in the Oneness of God."  The mysticism is so thick here in this description that it makes Sabbath keeping sound like a drug trip in which those who participate lose themselves entirely for a while.  "Just say, 'No!'" sounds appropriate here.

Lesson 45, page 20
Incidentally, the paradoxical concept of God as both resting point and source of all action helps explain an extremely cryptic and otherwise incomprehensibly esoteric passage in the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas."

It was a good thing that I wasn't eating while I read this page or I might have choked on my food.  The Gospel of Thomas????  Did FFOZ really just drop that deeply heretical fake Gospel into a lesson as if it too deserves to be given respect?  Once again, FFOZ is hoping that Christians are ignorant, it is the only explanation that makes sense.  The Gospel of Thomas was found buried in the Egyptian desert in 1945.  It was written by unknown Gnostics a couple of centuries after Christ, who attached the name of the Apostle Thomas to it.  To say that it is heretical is an understatement.  The Jesus portrayed in this abomination of a gospel is NOT the Jesus whom we worship as Lord and Savior.  The only value that this document has are the insights we can gain from it into the heresies that the Early Church resoundingly rejected through the Ecumenical Councils.  To drop it into a lesson, without explanation, is the height of careless toying with heretical teachings.

In the end, this Torah Club lesson contains new errors when it leans heavily upon the Clementine Homilies and name-drops the Gospel of Thomas, but it is built upon the same error we have seen so many times from FFOZ: A willingness to elevate any source or method that supports the conclusions they've already proclaimed.  

Beginning of Wisdom (Torah Club) lesson #22/23: When the Torah Club lesson mistranslates and misquotes an Early Church celebration of the Lord's Day to make it sound pro-Sabbath keeping instead

 

Everybody makes mistakes, myself included.  But when you publish a book, shouldn't there be an editor who asks if the quote you are using means what you think it means?  In lesson 22-23 of the Beginning of Wisdom, Daniel Lancaster quotes an anonymous work of the Early Church (probably from the 4th century) known as the Apostolic Constitutions.  The quote is used by Lancaster to illustrate the supposed high view of the early disciples of Jesus for the Sabbath.  There's just one problem, while they did indeed respect the Sabbath as something that had been important to God's work with Israel, the actual context of the quote is an entire extended paragraph about the superiority of the New Covenant in Christ, including that of the Lord's Day (resurrection day, Sunday) over the Old Covenant and the Sabbath.

How can this quote be used for the purpose to which the Torah Club material puts it?  Easy enough, part of it is mistranslated, something FFOZ does all the time with, "my translation" uses and explanatory brackets inserted into the text, or as in this case, with blatant word substitution.  Here we have the original Greek nomos (presumably, any ancient editions have been lost, our oldest surviving manuscript of it is from the 12th century; the text's history is actually fairly complex), which means law, casually replaced by Lancaster with Torah.  I've pointed out this liberty taken with the NT text (a far more serious charge) over and over again in FFOZ publications.  Whenever it is advantageous to their argument, Torah is inserted into NT quotes, often when the author's context makes it clear that it isn't the Law of Moses that he's writing about.

The second way in which this quote is abused is by leaving out what comes before it, including the very next sentence, which dramatically undermines what Lancaster is trying to say.  Let's look at an English translation of the entire 36th chapter of book 7 (All emphasis below is mine):

XXXVI. O Lord Almighty Thou hast created the world by Christ, and hast appointed the Sabbath in memory thereof, because that on that day Thou hast made us rest from our works, for the meditation upon Thy laws. Thou hast also appointed festivals for the rejoicing of our souls, that we might come into the remembrance of that wisdom which was created by Thee; how He submitted to be made of a woman on our account; (2) He appeared in life, and demonstrated Himself in His baptism; how He that appeared is both God and man; He suffered for us by Thy permission, and died, and rose again by Thy power: on which account we solemnly assemble to celebrate the feast of the resurrection on the Lord's day, and rejoice on account of Him who has conquered death, and has brought life and immortality to light. For by Him Thou hast brought home the Gentiles to Thyself for a peculiar people, the true Israel beloved of God, and seeing God. For Thou O Lord, broughtest our fathers out of the land of Egypt, and didst deliver them out of the iron furnace, from clay and brick-making, and didst redeem them out of the hands of Pharaoh, and of those under him, and didst lead them through the sea as through dry land, and didst bear their manners in the wilderness, and bestow on them all sorts of good things. Thou didst give them the law or decalogue, which was pronounced by Thy voice and written with Thy hand. Thou didst enjoin the observation of the Sabbath, not affording them an occasion of idleness, but an opportunity of piety, for their knowledge of Thy power, and the prohibition of evils; having limited them as within an holy circuit for the sake of doctrine, for the rejoicing upon the seventh period. On this account was there appointed one week, and seven weeks, and the seventh month, and the seventh year, and the revolution of these, the jubilee, which is the fiftieth year for remission, that men might have no occasion to pretend ignorance. (3) On this account He permitted men every Sabbath to rest, that so no one might be willing to send one word out of his mouth in anger on the day of the Sabbath. For the Sabbath is the ceasing of the creation, the completion of the world, the inquiry after laws, and the grateful praise to God for the blessings He has bestowed upon men. All which the Lord's day excels, (4) and shows the Mediator Himself, the Provider, the Lawgiver, the Cause of the resurrection, the First-born of the whole creation, God the Word, and man, who was born of Mary alone, without a man, who lived holily, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and died, and rose again from the dead. So that the Lord's day commands us to offer unto Thee, O Lord, thanksgiving for all. (5) For this is the grace afforded by Thee, which on account of its greatness has obscured all other blessings.

The compiler of the Apostolic Constitutions is writing about, or quoting someone else who had previously written about, the respect that the Early Church felt for the Sabbath because of its connection to Creation and the Exodus, but at the same time he emphasized that the Lord's Day, that is Resurrection Day, i.e. Sunday, had become the day on which Jesus' followers gathered to worship because what Jesus had accomplished in the Incarnation, Cross, and Empty Tomb, was so great that it "excels" what had been done before, and "obscured" all previous blessings of God.

Why, then, do Christians worship on Sunday, is it because we hate the Sabbath and all things Jewish?  Nonsense, that's a ridiculous Straw Man.  We do so because even though God's work through Israel before Jesus was awe inspiring and worthy of praise, his work through Jesus and in Jesus puts all of it in the shade.  The Incarnation is a greater visitation of God than Mt. Sinai, and the New Covenant which is open to all the world's people is a greater outpouring of grace than the Law of Moses. 

Sermon Video: God Rest When His Work is Done - Genesis 2:1-3

What does it mean that God "rested" when his work of Creation was completed?  The idea of completion is key to understanding the idea of Sabbath.  God "rested" because the Temple of his Creation was fully formed and functioning thus setting the stage for God to sit upon the throne of heaven and begin his rule over what he had made.  It is in that vein that Jesus fulfills the Sabbath (and the whole Law of Moses) by completing God's work of redemption, after which he ascended at sat down at the right hand of the Father, thus also indicating that the final victory was forever won.

How do we "rest" by honoring God as Gentile Christians?  We let go of our own vain belief in our independence and accept that God is fully and completely in control, that his will for us is perfect, and that he will finish the work that he began in us on the other side of death.  In other words, we can rest any time of any day by fully trusting in God.

Sermon Video: Grace is Greater than Law - Mark 2:23-3:6

 Having been accused by Pharisees of violating the letter of the law regarding the Sabbath, Jesus reminds them of the way in which David violated the letter of the law in order to meet an extraordinary need.  This sets up a confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees about whether or not it is proper to heal on the Sabbath.  Jesus does so, elevating Grace above Law, the doing of Good above questions of how, when, or where.  As Christians, we can be in danger of becoming like the Pharisees, of elevating the form of religion over the heart, or of defending morality (God, Law, ethics, Truth) in ways that are inconsistent with the character of God (the Fruit of the Spirit).  This is not acceptable, to further the Kingdom of God, we need to act in Christ-like ways, no matter what cause we're championing.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Sermon Video: When rules choke out compassion - Luke 13:10-17

While teaching in a synagogue, on the Sabbath, Jesus was confronted with the implications of a cultural/religious phenomenon known as expansion of piety.  In this case, it was observance of the Sabbath that had grown more elaborate and restrictive over time to the point that by the first century, it was even considered to be a violation of the Law to heal someone of infirmity on the Sabbath.  This has, of course, nothing to do with the original intent of the law of Sabbath rest, but is instead a result of small incremental steps of increasing piety/devotion over time and the eventual integration of those new facets of keeping the Sabbath into the accepted form of obeying the Law.  Eventually, the traditions surrounding the Sabbath came to be accepted as being as sacred and binding as that which was contained originally in the Law of Moses.
This same phenomenon occurs in Church history, as pious scribes over time magnify the name of Jesus in the text that they are copying such that what was originally simply "Jesus" eventually becomes "our Lord Jesus Christ".  Similarly, appreciation for Mary as the mother of Jesus eventually builds and grows until it becomes full blown Marian devotion in the Middle Ages, the same thing applying to the Saints and their relics.  Likewise, the church liturgy itself, along with the church buildings, communion items like the candlesticks and cups, and the priestly vestments, all grew more elaborate and complex over time.
The problem with this tendency arises when a would be reformer seeks to return things to their original intent or purpose only to be viewed as a heretic for daring to attack the sacred when in reality he/she is only seeking to peel away the layers of human additions to what God instituted.  Some such additions and growths are harmless, but others, like the change of how the Sabbath was observed that Jesus confronted, can lead to a twisting of what the original purpose was to the extent that it actually becomes harmful.  The enhanced Sabbath observance not only led to hypocritical and silly extremes, but it eventually raised keeping the Sabbath above the needs of real people such that the crowd became indignant with Jesus when he dared to heal on the Sabbath.
In the end, what God had decreed, we have no right to change, what man has built upon that foundation, should always be open to reform, especially if what we have built puts tradition, rules, and preferences, above the needs of the people of God.

To watch the video, click on the link below:

Is it time for you to take a Sabbatical?

One of my fellow ministers here in Franklin is leaving today for an extended Sabbatical until after Easter.  The first thought that most of us have on hearing something like that is a bit of jealousy.  Wouldn't we all love to walk away from our job for a while and get a break that last longer than the standard two weeks?  The idea of a Sabbatical, which comes from the Hebrew Shabbat (Sabbath), is actually something that God intended to be an integral part of the way that society functions.  We are all familiar with the weekly Sabbath, for Jews Saturday, for Christians Sunday, that reflects the seventh day of rest at the end of the Genesis account of Creation.  That weekly break from labor is certainly something we can see the value of, and something we ignore at the peril of our own health, but God inteneded it to be part of a greater scheme of rest that went far beyond a weekly break.  In the Law given to Moses, the people were commanded to let the land have a rest, and themselves as well, every seventh year.  In other words, they were to work the land for six years, and then take one year off.  We have much the same concept regarding the land today with crop rotations and allow the land to lie fallow from time to time, but the idea of giving ourselves longer breaks from labor has always failed to gain hold when practical considerations overrule such considerations.  Today, only professionals, especially academics and scientists, consider a sabbatical to be a part of their career path, although most of these use that time away for an intense level of work on a special project such as writing a book or doing field research.
Do any of us ever really take time AWAY from our 24/7 connected and wired-in world anymore?  What would it be like to walk away from e-mail, voice-mail, facebook, and who knows what else, for not just a few days, but for a few months?  The problem with never stepping away from the daily grind is that we don't take the time to step back and look at how we do what we do, or why.  The next day's work is coming too fast, no time to think about priorities, no time to evaluate the quality of life we're living, nor to consider the opportunities that pass us by to help others.  What could you accomplish with a sabbatical?  What would happen if you took the time to look at your life from the outside for a change?  God knew what he was doing when he told his people to include rest in their lives.  I wish my fellow minister well in her time off, and I wonder, who will return to us after it ends?  Hopefully, and I mean this in the right way, not the same person who left.

Sermon Video: John 9:13-25 "I was blind but now I see!"

What is the response to Jesus healing a man born blind?  Wonder?  Gratitude?  No, controversy.  The healing took place on the Sabbath when "work" was forbidden.  What kind of man heals with the power of God on the Sabbath?  The healed man's famous response to being questioned on the matter, "One thing I do know, I was blind but now I see!"

To watch the video, click on the links below:
Sermon Video Part 1
Sermon Video Part 2