Speaking of fools and folly :)

What is Matt 5:22 really saying?

Where does he say it is impossible? I didn't see that. I read the whole thing in the interlinear and it seems like he's saying to put on your best behavior so as not to create stumbling blocks for others. Am I missing something?

hey Shohn,
I agree it SEEMS like an odd passage but the key i think is here: . If u are calling someone a fool with no CAUSE...be careful!

The Scripture defines SIN as transgression of the LAW. Yeshua told people to *SIN no more*, ie, qwit breaking Torah! If He told us we could stop breaking Torah, maybe we should believe Him. Torah is NOT impossible, nor is it futile: we are commanded by the Messiah to stop breaking His commands. If the women taken in adultery was expected to keep Torah, I cant see how we can suggest that it is impossible. The Torah was spoken from the mouth of the Almighty: to suggest that it is futile or impossible to keep His words seems like we are making Him a meanie. lol

He gave us the Ruach haKodesh to empower us to live holy lives, to give us the ability to NOT break Torah, imo.

Shalom,
Ruchamah

1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

As far as breaking the commandments, I read somewhere that the concept of breaking the law may have been a bit different then. Something like "treading it underfoot" vs. guarding it as opposed to our modern way of thinking. If I relate it to a speed limit, perhaps this means don't worry about going 1 or 2 or 5 miles over the limit, but if you are doing 120 MPH you're gonna land in jail. Then there are some elements of the law which are weightier. Don't murder people for example.

So in saying that Torah is not impossible, that implies that I may need a few goats and lambs to sacrafice and need to start stoning people who get out of line. To further this line of thought, it seems like Paul was noted as making sacrafices in the Temple to get 5 people out of their Nazarite vow somewhere in Acts. Perhaps the stoning violations only applied as long as the skepter was still in their hands and there was a physical temple around? I recall it being written somehwere that we were to listen to every word that comes from his (the prophet like Moses to come at a later time) mouth in the law/prophets. I can't remember the exact reference, but perhaps since that was part of Torah - it built in an automatic legal bridge to allow Yahshua to provide a correct interpretation of the law going even going so far as to eliminate certain aspects such as the ol' stoning. Yahshua also corrected the making the Torah of no account by the Pharisees.

So by sin no more, by even so much as becoming angry in your heart without cause you have sinned with this new definition provided by Yahshua. Perhaps what He is saying goes beyond that, in that all of us are going to "break" the law, therefore maybe you should focus less on what everyone else is doing wrong and more on what you are doing wrong, which I think would tie into what Icy may hav have been saying.

Fortunately we are no longer under the penalty of the law, eh?

Gehenna - is that an idiom for something? Yes I know about the valley and all that, but what did that mean to the people he was talking to? Was it more than just a garbage dump?

Also, what I find curious is it seems like in at least English versions, the focus words seem to state "commandments, statutes, and ordinances" in the OC whereas in English versions of the RC it seems to just be commandments. Not sure if this is a translation problem or just emphasis or twisting by English translators.

Shohn, that is what I was trying to get at.

I have to say that Ruch made a very simple and...good point in his last post. We can't abide by all of the Torah, at least to the letter and literal practice, but even those that we can't physically observe still are "observed" in a spiritual sense and have relevance to the overall message. It is still the path that we walk to get to the narrow gate and we do stray from the path..all of us, but that path is still there to come back to.

Yahuweh redeemed Israel out of Egypt as a freewill offering given graciously from his heart. THEN he gave them as a collective body the Torah at Sinai on Pentecost.

If Yahuweh first redeemed Israel out of the goodness and love in his heart for them and then gave them Torah, I don't really see that the Ekklesia (which =qahal (as was used in the Covenant scriptures for assembly) is any different.

I really think that in most of Paul's letters we see a simple concept that is missed in the milleu of men and religion. I could be wrong but this is what I see emerging over and over again in Paul's letters concerning grace and salvation....
Don't try to pull the horse of salvation with the cart of Torah.

Just to make sure I am understood....
Don't put of the cart of Torah before the horse of salvation

I think that pretty much sums it up for me.

I think things are getting too complicated sometimes and I don't know if I am correct or not but I see 2 schools emerging on Israel/Torah
one is the Yada school and the other is the KP school, I may be wrong, but from what i have read that's what I get from it.

If Abraham was indeed a gentile saved by faith and his offspring went on to become Israel and recieve the Torah, and Caleb, Urriyah, Obadyah, and Ruth, became Israel I don't see how Gentiles now are different.

Torah is for all of the assembly,...for the native born and the stranger

Shalom