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.

Sermon Video: Love Must be Sincere - Romans 12:9-10

What does a Christ-like community look like?  The Apostle Paul answers the question by starting with (1) sincere love, and then adding to that challenge by requiring that we (2) both hate evil AND do so while loving good (that is, oppose evil with righteousness, not with evil), (3) loving each other, and lastly (4) putting each other above ourselves.

This is what it takes to be Christ-like.  That's what we need faith, grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit to accomplish.

Sermon Video: One Body with many different gifts - Romans 12:4-8

The Church was designed and created by God to be unity with diversity.  The Gospel has always appealed, purposefully, to many different people.  As a church then, whether we're talking about our local congregation or a grouping of congregation in a community or denomination, we have only one body made up of many different parts.  These parts have been given gifts by God's grace of talents and abilities designed to make individuals usual in the life of the church and the completion of its mission.

Here's the key thing: Everyone in every church has a gift from God that they can share with the other members of the church.  We all can contribute to the common cause, we all can make a difference.

Sermon Video: How should we view ourselves? - Romans 12:3

Before explaining how the various members of the church (local and universal) fit together in God's will, the Apostle Paul offers a reminder that as Christians we need to look at ourselves with sober judgement.  His primary emphasis is the danger of letting pride skew our self-view, there is an equal (hard to say if it is more/less common) danger in letting doubt/despair skew our self-view in the opposite direction.  In both cases we can rely upon baseline truths to help us avoid self-deception: (1) We are all created in God's image, this creates a floor of self-worth, nobody is worthless. (2) We are all lost sinners, incapable of pleasing God on our own, this creates a ceiling of self-worth, nobody is perfect.  (3) We are all saved by grace, this moderates both extremes by lifting us up because of our transformation in Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and reminding us that this gain is all a gift of grace.

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.