Sermon Video: What Should We Pray for? - Romans 8:26-27

We need to pray.  A disciples of Jesus Christ, as a people called out of the darkness into the light, but still living in a world mired in sin with our own weaknesses, fears, and struggles to contend with, we most certainly need to pray.  On top of that, God tells us to pray, a lot.

But, and here's where things get more difficult, HOW do we pray in terms of time, place, manner, style?  We have some guidance in scripture, but the various portions of the Church offer their own approaches.  And along with it, the more difficult question: WHAT should we pray for?  When the answer is generic: pray for peace, hope, justice, lives spared and souls saved, that's easy enough; but what should I pray for when it's personal, when there seems to be no way forward, no solutions that we can see?

Thankfully, God has a solution to our consternation: The Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit prays WITH us when we pray.  The Spirit that God has caused to dwell within speaks while we pray.  Not to us, but to God.  That's right.  Our prayers are the start of a conversation within the Holy Trinity.  God talking to God.  Whether or not you can wrap your head around it, that's an encouraging thought.  So keep on praying.

Is my role in the fight against the Torah Clubs (FFOZ) personal? Absolutely, and it should be, this is why.

 

The Mustard Seed Mission committee accepting an award for Outstanding Service from Venango County Human Services in 2012.  This was our team, and I'm proud of that team and what each member contributed, but this picture also includes, after they left us, those who went on to bring the Torah Clubs to this community.

On of the criticisms that has been aimed at the Franklin Ministerium following our decision to publicly warn the Christian community about the theology behind the Torah Clubs (First Fruits of Zion) {The Franklin Christian Miniserium's warning against the Torah Clubs and the First Fruits of Zion} has been that our action didn't arise out of sense of pastoral responsibility or Gospel fealty, but rather is personal in nature.  That criticism implies that a personal motive in such a case is a base motive, an unworthy motive, that somehow diminishes any claim to Truth we might be making.  While it is true that personal motivations can be the basis for abusing authority or power, it is also true that any confrontation that involves the people, places, and institutions into which we've poured our hearts and souls cannot help but be personal.  For us, as pastors serving in this community, to be dispassionate about this issue, and disconnected from it emotionally, would itself be a dangerous sign.  Do we really want pastors who aren't personally invested in what they do?  

The following reasons are why this issue is personal to me, it isn't an exhaustive list, and my fellow pastors who have taken this stand with me would have their own list (although no doubt with much overlap).  Consider it and decide if, "this is personal," really should disqualify us from speaking with authority; for all the reasons below I don't buy that at all.

These are fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

I'll lead with the most universal of motives, one that we all are required to share as followers of Jesus: Love for each other.  Given that Jesus commands us to love one another, in fact making the law of love the centerpiece of his New Covenant, it isn't optional, we have to love.  Therefore, anyone who has shown themself to be a devoted follower of Jesus Christ, someone redeemed by the Blood of the Lamb, is my spiritual brother or sister.  We are family.  When an issue concerns our family, doesn't it need to be personal?

I can testify that those who have taken up leadership positions in the Torah Clubs (2/3 of them here locally I know well enough for this) have demonstrated over the 11+ years that I have been in Franklin, a love for Jesus Christ, a willingness to serve his Church, and a zeal for righteousness.  I have no doubt of this.  

Which is why it troubles me all the more when I see evidence that these brothers and sisters in Christ are embracing Modalism (A denial of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed), or elevating Torah above the rest of Scripture, or following an organization that claims only those who keep Torah (think kosher, Sabbath, festivals) are the ones who truly love Jesus.  These are real people, that I know, who have gone astray, watching them do so had better be personal to me, and it is.  As a shepherd of the sheep, while they may not be in my flock, watching them wander off into the wilderness while spurning our efforts to call them back to safety, is painful.

In addition to the leaders who are known to me, the Torah Clubs have pulled in a number of committed Christians whom I know, whom I respect, and for whom my concern for their spiritual well being is very real.

I've worked alongside them previously on behalf of the Kingdom of God.

As the captioned picture at the top of this post shows, I once proudly stood alongside two of the local Torah Clubs leaders back in 2012 when we were all honored by the county for our role in leading Mustard Seed Missions.  In that first year, and for some time after, we worked together weekly, sometimes daily, to help those in need as these two individuals held key roles in our organization.  As the President of MSM, I relied upon their work and dedication as we turned that idea into something that has now helped over 1,700 families in its ten+ years of existence.  To have once pulled on the rope together in the same direction, and to have had success in doing so, only to a few years later see these same people that I once strove with striving now against my work, my ministry, and my passion, is hard.  To be forced to call them out (not by name, that's a conscious choice here) because they're harming those same things, and to now oppose what they're passionate about and have dedicated their lives to, can't help but be emotional.  We once were on the same team, I didn't change what and who I represent, but we find ourselves in opposition now just the same.

This is my town, my community, my home.

Baptist polity makes this one different for me than most of my fellow ministers.  I'm a free agent when it comes to where I serve the Church.  I'm originally from Michigan, and Michigan will always be where I'm from, but at some point after my wife Nicole and I moved here to Franklin in 2012, this became our home.  It started for me with my opposite corner of the 11th and Liberty intersection neighbor, Pastor Jeff Little, who was the first to welcome us and has since become a "friend closer than a brother."  It continued on with joining the ministerium where I was welcomed by Pastor David Janz, Pastor Scott Woodlee, and Mother Holly, among others.  We formed a bond, worked together, dreamed of what might be possible in this community.

In all honesty, and I've written and spoken about this before, Franklin was the first community that ever treated me with respect, that every cared about my ideas, and that accepted me in a leadership role.  That I was able to help create Mustard Seed Missions in this community, less than a year after moving here, is a powerful testimony to how gracious the people of God have been to me in this place.

For much of my time here I have also served as a member of the Venango County Christian Ministerium, an organization I helped start.  We bring together the Christian community throughout Venango County for a joint worship service on Thanksgiving and Palm Sunday, and have also over the years organized the observance of the National Day of Prayer and the 40 Days of Prayer during Lent.  It is known in this community that I have put significant time and effort into building ecumenical bonds among our churches.  The Church in Venango County matters to me.

This is also where my daughter, my precious Clara Marie, was born, this is her home, if I needed any more motivation to be invested in what happens here, that's one more reason.  Is it any wonder that when I see a threat to this area's Christian community it feels deeply and painfully personal to me?

This is my Church.

As a minister ordained to serve the Church of Jesus Christ, in my case as an American Baptist minister, the universal Church is my Church.  Whenever I hear of false teaching, of dangerous charlatans milking it for money, or demagogues using it for their own ends, it touches a nerve.  I have written and spoken against such many times over the years, but these dangerous always originated elsewhere, were a greater danger to other local churches than our own.  That doesn't make doing our small part any less important, each one of us who serves this Church faithfully is diminished by each person who uses it as a means to an end.  Each time it is harmed, our small piece of it is harmed too.

Whether we, as a ministerium, can convince the Christian community of this or not, everything in our education, training, and experience is telling every one of us that what the Torah Clubs (FFOZ) are teaching, and what they're aiming to do, will harm the Church.  That this movement is outside of the historic, orthodox, and apostolic tradition and teaching of the Church.  We also know that it is rejected by the history, theology, and leadership of Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant Churches.  Should not harm caused to the Bride of Christ be personal to every one of us who belong to it?  

This is my church.

Within that universal framework exists an untold number of individual churches.  First Baptist Church of Franklin is my church.  This is true on two levels: (1) This is where I worship, fellowship, pray, and serve, and (2) this is the congregation with whose care and protection I have been entrusted.  Thus both my own personal Christian discipleship which takes place within this congregation that I belong to, and the people for whom I will one day give an account before Almighty God as to how well I served as their shepherd, are at risk when a dangerous idea aimed at the Church takes root in our community.  For my own sake, and for the sake of my people, this fight is deeply personal.

The Torah Clubs are being presented as just another Bible study.  In reality, it is an effort to proselytize within the local church.  By the admission of the founder of First Fruits of Zion, the Church is the mission field.  It is not the Lost who are sought after to join this movement, but those already in fellowship within local churches who are being told that the Church (and their pastor by extension) has been lying to them about Jesus all along.  We are purposefully the targets, and taking us from the historic, apostolic, and biblical faith and practice in which we were raised is the goal.  I wouldn't make this claim lightly, but having read such things in their own published works, I'd be a fool to not take the threat seriously.  This is an organization that believes it will bring about the End Times by converting the Church to the practices of Judaism.

{The evidence of this motivation and goal:An Examination of the unorthodox beliefs of the First Fruits of Zion, their Torah Clubs, and the Hebrew Roots Movement in general} 

Let me add this, each of us who has accepted the role of pastoral leader has taken up a sacred trust.  We must not only preach, teach, and demonstrate the Gospel to our people, but we must also go forth, thankfully in this case not alone, to protect the sheep from the wolves.  Whether or not this is dangerous to us is not really a question we can entertain, it must be done.

This is my Gospel

The reason why protecting the Gospel is personal to me is clear: It saved me too.  At this point in my life I'm an ordained pastor, a leader within the Church, but I too was once just a kid who learned that Jesus died upon the Cross and rose again from the dead to save me from my sins.  I put my hope and trust in that salvation, was baptized, and began a life of fellowship in the community of believers.  Like that old commercial where the guy says he liked the product so much he bought the company, I'm a defender of the Gospel because I know what it has done for me.  When I sing Amazing Grace, the words are my words too.

So let me count the cost

We could, as a ministerium, have done nothing, we could have remained silent, we could have hoped that this movement would prove itself to be the latest fad, here today, gone tomorrow.  Lord willing, when we look back on this moment in ten years it will be with relief, it will be with God-honoring stories of how some of our fellow Christians lost their way for a time, but how the grace of God once more brought them home.  We pray that this will happen, but after many hours of discussion and research, as a ministerium, it was clear to us that we had a role to play, "for such a time as this," that we would have to take a stand.

If the local Torah Club leaders continue to embrace the notion that the proper form of Christian discipleship is to 'live like Jews' {Which is the bedrock belief of the organization whose teaching they chose to bring to our community}, doing so in the face of everything we as this community's pastoral leaders are able to do to show how false and dangerous this path is to them, if they will not repent, and personal and painful as that will be for me and the rest of the local pastoral leaders, our other task remains and cannot be set aside: We must protect the sheep from wolves that would devour them, and I make no excuse for that being entirely personal to me.

A foundational flaw: The Torah Clubs (FFOZ) teach Christians are grafted into Israel, but that's not what Romans 11 says

A little bit of biblical interpretation can be a dangerous thing when placed in the service of an agenda.  In this case, the Hebrew Roots Movement in the form of the First Fruits of Zion and their Torah Clubs, want to convince the Church that contrary to Christian orthodox understanding, the root that gentile believers in Jesus Christ have been grafted onto is Israel (the Mosaic Covenant in particular) and not the Abrahamic Covenant (God's redemptive plan for Jews and Gentiles from the beginning).  

"What is not debatable is that all, believers already have citizenship in Israel through faith in Messiah. Non-Jews are grafted into Israel. Non-Jews are made part of the commonwealth of Israel." - Boaz Michael, Founder and President of FFOZ

Why does the difference between the promise to Abraham before he became the father of many nations, and the promise to the Israelites at Sinai when God called them to be a people set apart for his purpose, matter so much?  The answer is simple: If Christians are grafted onto God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 {"I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”}, the basis of that relationship with God, faith, predates both circumcision in the life of Abraham (by decades, see Romans 4:9-12) and the giving of the Law of Moses to Israel by 430 years (see Galatians 3:17).  The only way, then, to insist that the New Covenant was designed to require gentile Christians to live like Jews (keeping the Law of Moses, or Torah), is to interpret passages like Romans 11 in a way contrary to not only the context itself (see Romans 4 where the FFOZ view of Romans 11 falls apart), but the tenor and tone of the New Testament in general (see Paul in Galatians, or Hebrews), and the way in which they have been understood throughout Church history.

The change, from viewing the root as the promise to Abraham to that made to his descendants at Sinai, may seem small enough to those who don't see the implications right away.  To say that gentiles are grafted into Israel rather than into the faith demonstrated by Abraham, a faith in a promised Messiah rather than trust in a legal code, does in fact change the relationship between the Church and God in fundamental ways.  Let us look at Romans 11.

Romans 11:17-24  New International Version

17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. 19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” 20 Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. 21 For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

22 Consider therefore the kindness and sternness of God: sternness to those who fell, but kindness to you, provided that you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off. 23 And if they do not persist in unbelief, they will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. 24 After all, if you were cut out of an olive tree that is wild by nature, and contrary to nature were grafted into a cultivated olive tree, how much more readily will these, the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree!

Looking at this passage, the first question when pondering the analogy as the FFOZ views it should be: How can Israel be the root that nourishes the plant AND the branch that was cut off for unbelief at the same time?  Does the Apostle Paul normally make such sloppy illustrations?  No, he does not.  

The second question should be: Was Israel (the Mosaic Covenant) the beginning of God's redemptive plan, or a subsequent iteration?  Aside from the promise to Eve in Genesis 3:15 (And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”), the first substantial movement toward God's redemption of humanity is the calling of Abraham, by faith, and the establishment of God's covenant with Abraham, one that promises blessings to all nations.  This is the root of Romans 11, this is the foundation upon which God built both the Old Covenant at Sinai and the New Covenant established by Jesus.  In the New Covenant, Christians join Abraham in sharing in God's promise by faith, they are NOT called to share in Israel's Law, which is a branch that grew out of the Abrahamic faith-based root.  It makes no sense to claim that Israel (Mosaic Law/Torah) is the root of the New Covenant when both Galatians and Hebrews go to great lengths to demonstrate the superiority of the New Covenant and its connection not to Moses and Sinai but to Abraham.

So what we have here with the Torah Clubs (FFOZ) is the re-interpretation of a passage to arrive at a pre-determined outcome that twists the original purpose, and traditional view, back on itself to arrive at a nearly opposite conclusion.  In our research as a ministerium, we saw this flawed hermeneutic being utilized again and again.  The self-proclaimed goal of this movement is to put the yoke of the Mosaic Law upon the necks of gentile Christians, twisting scripture is the methodology used to promote it.  This is both unacceptable and exceedingly dangerous, that other Christian and self-proclaimed 'Christian' individuals and groups make similar eisegetical (reading into the text) self-serving interpretations in other places relating to other issues {looking at you, Prosperity Gospel and 'Christian' Nationalism} is no defense for the FFOZ, it simply reminds us that abuse of God's Word is an equal opportunity error.

This is not a harmless Bible study, this is a movement that believes it was chosen by God to reform the Church, turning it into something it never was, and something it was never meant to be.  We, as Christians, are the heirs of the promise to Abraham, not the Law of Moses.

 

The Torah Clubs (FFOZ) remind us why we need an educated and accountable clergy - James 3:1 and 1 Timothy 1:6-7

 

The picture at the start of this article is the moment that Pastor James Frank, my mentor and the only pastor that I've ever had {he was at my family's church, Galilee Baptist of Saranac, when I was born, and was still there when I left to enter vocational ministry}, prayed for me while my first church, 1st Baptist of Palo's leadership placed their hands on me in a distinctly Baptist moment of ordination.  In the Baptist tradition, ordination is a local church matter, it may be recognized later by an association or regional body, but whether or not a person is worthy of serving the church in a role of ordained pastoral leadership is a collective act of the local church membership.  On the other end of the church polity spectrum, you have ordination's that take place under the authority of a bishop with a top-down ecclesiastical structure's approval.  In the end, while I firmly believe in the Baptist model of structure and governance, I can readily see that our system has both pros and cons built into it (both reality to the reality of human sinful nature), and so does that of the more tightly knit Christian faith traditions.  In our diversity, however, is woven a common thread: accountability. 

A Baptist minister is accountable to his/her congregation, they can vote him/her out for reasons both good and bad.  Additionally, if a Baptist minister lives in a way that is unworthy of being a pastoral leader, and/or teaches unorthodox and unbiblical doctrine, the church that ordained him/her can revoke that stamp of approval.  Similar checks and balances exist in Methodist, Episcopal, Catholic, and Orthodox (to name a few) traditions, they just flow more/less from the top-down instead of the Baptist's bottom-up.  Either way, we have a system of accountability, something that in theory will adhere to the Apostle Paul's lengthy and detailed requirements to be a deacon or elder.   Does the accountability of church authority work all the time?  Of course not, human sin has hampered it time and time again, but that accountability does exist, and that matters.

Which brings us to the current controversy here in Venango County revolving around the Torah Clubs (and their parent organization, the First Fruits of Zion).  As the Franklin Christian Ministerium's letter (link below) has pointed out, and backed-up with page after page of documentation, the teachings of this movement are clearly and repeatedly NOT apostolic, biblical, or orthodox.  

The answer from the local leadership of these organizations to the ministerium's effort could have been, "My God, we had no notion that the ideas we were promoting were so dangerous."  Or some such evidence of having heard the call to repentance, of heeding the collective wisdom of this town's pastoral leadership.  Instead, thus far, it seems our effort has had little effect.  We continue to pray that this will change, but the whole point of the theology of First Fruits of Zion is that orthodoxy, what the Church has taught and lived for the past two thousand years, is gravely wrong.  If leaving orthodoxy behind has no stigma, but rather is seen as a sign of God's blessing, how can an appeal to it be effective?  If Church History is supposedly one big mistake, why would anyone care that they're following a movement that mocks our ancestors in the faith?

Which is where education, training, experience, and accountability come into the picture.

James 3:1  New International Version

Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.

As someone who felt the call to ministry, and responded with years of formal training and then sought a position of accountable leadership, this verse has always spoken to me powerfully.  What we, the men and women called to lead the Church, have done is take no small risk.  By daring to be teachers of the Word of God, we invite the judgement of God upon ourselves should we fail to teach it aright.  I typically teach at least 2 1/2 hours of new material each week between my sermon and bible studies, all of it opening myself up to rebuke from God should I lead people astray; that's a weight on my shoulders, one I need to bear with humility and perseverance. 

We have a significant shortage of trained and willing clergy in America today.  That's no secret, and it affects virtually every denomination, especially as Boomer pastors retire in droves with smaller succeeding generations behind them.  As the GPS (Geographic Pastoral Servant) for the NW of the American Baptist Churches of Pennsylvania and Delaware, one of my obligations is to help churches conduct pastoral searches (in the Baptist tradition local churches bear this responsibility, nobody is 'sent' to the church by a higher ecclesiastical authority).  Churches, especially small rural ones, are having significant difficulty finding someone willing to serve their congregations.  The solutions, while they need to be varied and flexible, must NOT include placing people in positions of leadership who fail to meet the standards Paul set forth of character, experience, and knowledge.  In other words, untrained clergy are not the answer to anybody's problem, they would only make it worse.

1 Timothy 1:6-7  New International Version

6 Some have departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. 7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.

The danger of teaching theology without church accountability has been made manifest in our midst as a Christian community.  When an outside organization, in this case the Torah Clubs (FFOZ) promotes unorthodox beliefs, and presents it as simply a 'bible study', who checks to see if what they are teaching is in fact biblical?  I am a firm believer in para-church ministry.  I've founded one (Mustard Seed Missions), helped found another (Emmaus Haven), and our church has consistently supported numerous such efforts including Youth for Christ and Child Evangelism Fellowship.  But, and this is key, these organizations are built upon orthodox teaching, they've never given us, as a ministerium, pause to have them operating in conjunction with our churches, they've never given us reason to worry about what is being taught.

When it comes to the Torah Club material, I have now read hundreds of pages of it.  On the surface, it appears to be a well produced set of materials, kudos to their publishing house, I'd be happy for them if what they were producing wasn't so dangerous.  It is possible to read a page or two of this material and get nothing more than what you would find in a typical biblical commentary on the text at hand, the kind of thing that I have on my shelf here in my office.  And then there's that one sentence, the one that hints at Modalism, or that other sentence, the one that paraphrases a NT quote by putting Torah in the place of the Greek term for law or commandment leading to a novel interpretation, or that other one, the one that claims that the good works that God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10) is the keeping of Torah!  A typical bible study this is not.

For an ordinary lay person, someone who has attended church for years but not undergone any rigorous theological training, the subtle distortions of theology coming from FFOZ in the Torah Club material might go unnoticed.  No doubt most of those participating here locally think they're just reading a serious bible study and have no idea that this organization is attempting to recreate the Church into a Torah observant community, that what they're consuming is an indictment of not only their church pastor but the very teaching and preaching of the Gospel as we know it.  

There's a reason why God chooses the sheep and shepherd analogy to talk about the church, not because those of us called to serve are any better than the laity, but because we've been given the tools and the authority to fight back against the wolves when they attack the flock.

There's a reason why the Church needs an educated and accountable clergy, what the Franklin Christian Ministerium has chosen to do by confronting the Torah Clubs is exhibit A.

"Who do you think you are!  What gives you the right to call this heresy!!"  If that thought has been expressed of late the answer is simple.  We are the men and women accountable to God for leading his church, and we've taken oaths to protect and defend not only the people of God, but the Gospel that showed them God's redemption in Christ Jesus.

The Franklin Christian Miniserium's warning against the Torah Clubs and the First Fruits of Zion

An Examination of the unorthodox beliefs of the First Fruits of Zion, their Torah Clubs, and the Hebrew Roots Movement in general

Sermon Video: All Creation awaits the Redemption of God's people, Romans 818-25

We, as God's people redeemed by Jesus, are already saved, but not have not yet been fully transformed into what we will become (Christ-like).  We have begun a journey by faith, but are traveling there still, with hope to help us along the way.  In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us that all of Creation (personified for literary purposes) itself anticipates this transformation, it too suffers presently and looks forward to glory to come as God's redemptive plan reaches its glorious conclusion.