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Friday, June 26, 2015

Derech Adonai or Derechim Adonai?



One of the reasons I love to hear other points of view is that they force you to re-assess various passages of Scripture---and the more time you spend with Scripture, the more HaShem will reveal to you.  This learning process occurred this morning while I was drinking my coffee and reading James Pyles' newest blog post.  

He said:

"I know that the phrase from Genesis 18:19 where God references Abraham saying “so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice,” has been taken by some to mean that, as spiritual children of Abraham, we should be obligated to the Torah mitzvot in the same manner as the descendants of Abraham’s offspring Isaac and Jacob, that is, the Jewish people.
     This would make things deceptively easy (not that they’d actually be easy) in terms of defining the role of the non-Jew within Messianic Jewish space. We’d just have the same role as the Jewish participants and thus we’d all be one big, happy family (not really, but that’s wish, anyway).
     But the commentary about the aforementioned portion of scripture is very interesting. It states “…he will command (yetzaveh) his children and his household,” as meaning he [Abraham] will “bring [his children and his household] into a communion (with G-d).”
     Except, because of our Abraham-like faith in Hashem through Yeshua, we can and are brought into communion with God. Having a halachic path identical to the Jewish people is completely unnecessary. How complicated does coming into communion with God have to be?" James Pyles, from:  http://mymorningmeditations.com/2015/06/26/we-are-students-of-abraham-communing-with-god/#comment-53116

I responded:

James,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Genesis 18:19 say that Abraham would teach his household the singular "way" of the L-rd ("derech Adonai")?  If Jews and Gentiles who believe in Yeshua both belong to the household of Abraham and are meant to follow DIFFERENT ways of life then shouldn't the Torah have said that Abraham would teach his household the PLURAL "ways" of the L-rd ("derechim Adonai")?


5 comments:

  1. No household could function with different rules for different sons, speaking generally, its absurd to think so. Just as the gentiles standing with Israel at Mount Sinai received the Torah, along with Israel. The same would happen in any family situation, I would not separate out some of my children and give them different rules, it would be absolute chaos. I am not saying there is not exceptions, there definitely is, however their is also the general rule, which is the main focus, the exceptions would not be the main focus.

    With that said, James argument is unrealistic.

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    1. Hear, hear. And I would add this:

      If a father has 2 sons, the firstborn and the adopted, and he provides clear instructions to the firstborn how he should live, giving him instructions on what to avoid and what to accomplish, but to the adopted son he says "sit and do nothing" (as in the case of the so-called Noahide laws), then the adopted son is not going to feel like part of the family. In fact, he would probably think to himself, "my father has surely excluded me from the family. Perhaps I can find acceptance elsewhere."

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  2. Hahahahaa! Love the response to James. Sometimes, the whole bilateral nonsense is beyond funny. So easily refuted.

    Completely agree with Zion. I've taught multiple groups and have asked for adoptive parents to question whether they have different rules for the natural born as their adopted children. The response is always an incredulous 'No!'

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