Believing Basics
The Four Pillars of Christianity
The Acts 15 Myth
Acts 15:1 — 1) And certain men came down from Yehuḏea {Judea} and were teaching the brothers {believers in Messiah Yeshua, specifically non-believing Yehudim}, “Unless you are circumcised, according to the practice of Moshe, you are unable to be saved.”
What’s going on here is some Judaizers, PHARISEES (based on information provided in following verses and in Galatians and other places) — some were believers in Messiah Yeshua — went out to where Sha’ul and the other emissaries were teaching and started talking in the ears of new believers (that were not already Yehudim).
They demanded that these non-Yehudim believers in Yeshua must fully convert to Judaism. This included the physical circumcision, following all the Torah (including sacrifices), AND (and this is THE key) THE ORAL TRADITIONS (takanot, ma’asim, Talmud, Mishna, oral Torah, THIS IS NOT TORAH).
Why would they make such a demand IF these new believers were converts to some new religion?
Still today, if one converts to Judaism, they must take on acceptance of and obedience to ALL the traditions of the Pharisees (rabbis these days).
These men are telling the new believers (in Galatia and other places like Rome and Colossi) that they MUST accept the whole package of Judaism, including the oral traditions, in order to be saved. This is not the message given by Messiah, not consistent with Scripture, and Sha’ul already knew this to be wrong. Instead of becoming entangled in an ongoing massive knock-down, and drag-out with these Pharisees, he and Barnaba, go up to Jerusalem to meet with the Disciples and elders.
Read Acts 15:2–5a to be up to speed with the commentary I have already provided.
Acts 15:5 — 5) And some of the believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees…
Here is a group within the believers who are Pharisees. They are a sect within the sect of The Way.
Acts 15:5b-12 — 10) “Now then, why do you try Elohim by putting a yoke {oral traditions, Messiah has a yoke, He said it is easy Matt 11:29–30} on the neck of the taught ones which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?
After these verses, Ya’akov, the half-brother of Yeshua Messiah, stands to speak the Word given to him by the Spirit:
Acts 15:13–18 — And after they were silent, Ya‛aqoḇ answered, saying, “Men, brothers, listen to me: “Shim‛on has declared how Elohim first visited the nations to take out of them a people for His Name. And the words of the prophets agree with this, as it has been written.” ‘After this, I shall return and rebuild the Booth of Dawiḏ which has fallen down. And I shall rebuild its ruins, and I shall set it up so that the remnant of mankind shall seek יהוה, even all the nations on whom My Name has been called, says יהוה who is doing all this,’ who has made this known from of old.
Then Ya’akov moved on to the four foundations on which the faith of new believers can be built:
Acts 15:19–21 — 19) “Therefore I judge that we should not trouble those from among the nations who are turning to Elohim, 20) but that we write to them to abstain from the defilements of idols <Exo 22:20, Lev 17:7, Deu 32:17, Deu 32:21, 1Co 10:14, 1Co 10:20–21> and from whoring <Num 25:1–3, Lev 17:7>, and from what is strangled <Gen 9:4, Eze 33:25; Pro 21:25>, and from blood <Lev 17:10–14> 21) “For from ancient generations Moshe has, in every city, those proclaiming him — being read in the congregations every Sabbath.”
→ Huh… What day?
Never-mind…
Here is Ya’akov laying out the four things a believer MUST NOT DO so that they can enter undefiled into the synagogue /Temple. There they went to hear and learn the Torah of Moshe, being read every Shabbat in every city that proclaimed the name of YHVH.
What happens a lot — most of the time — in Christianity, is these are “declared” the FOUR PILLARS of CHRISTIANITY. Here’s a list of four problems with that pronouncement:
→ 1) All four come from Torah. Christianity claims the Torah has been abolished. If the Torah is abolished, then why must Christians NOT DO any of these four things?
- a. Defilement of idol worship — adultery is the same in the Apostolic writings as it was in the Tanak. Worshiping an idol is adultery to the One you claim as your bridegroom. You cannot be married to Elohim and to some stone, wood, or metal statues (or TV or musicians, or…)
Link: Cross References (will go to a Wiki in my Amino group)
- b. Whoring: this isn’t just the obvious sleeping around randomly, but also the temple prostitution that was rampant in those days. Part of pagan temple worship was to hire a temple prostitute to bring you to a level of ecstasy so that you could be more euphoric in your prayers to the deity.
Link: Cross References
- c. Strangulation of the sacrificial animal allowed consumption of the animal with its blood still inside it. The religions today that still perform blood sacrifices do this practice (or break its neck) to keep the blood inside the animal.
Link: Cross References
- d. And then connected to the strangulation is the whole consumption of the blood part. Here in Asia, there is a thoroughly repugnant practice of eating gelatinized blood cubes. It is this reddish-brown cube of goo that looks just as disgusting as it sounds. It is blood, mixed with gelatin, slightly dried, and eaten. It isn’t necessarily performed in connection to pagan temple worship, but that’s where it came from.
Link: Cross References
→ 2) There are only four, not ten, or 275 or so. There is nothing about belief in Messiah, nothing about professing Him as Savior, nothing about going into the world to spread the good news. If these are THE four things a believer must NOT DO, then murder is okay? Stealing? Lying? How about profaning the Sabbath?
Ah-ha!
That’s why they are the “four pillars” because by using these through the false doctrine of man we can eliminate the importance of following YHVH in ALL of His Ways.
→ 3) They all point — IN THE NEXT VERSE — to why the believer is to NOT DO these things. To get into the only places in the WORLD where the Torah, Prophets, and Writings (Tanak) were read: the synagogue or Temple.
But Why?
These four practices prevent a person from entry into the holy (set apart) places of Elohim because these things defile him. It makes a person unclean or common.
What was Peter told? Do not call another man common or unclean. Why? These seem contradictory.
But they are not.
Cornelius and his family WANTED the good news. They were already Torah obedient, synagogue attending, Tanak learning, Word seeking people, just not full converts to Judaism (Judaized). They prayed and served Elohim faithfully. They were spiritually set apart (holy) already, they just needed the last piece — belief in the Messiah Yeshua. They already knew about the Messiah from Tanak. They just required Peter to introduce them.
AND!
They were undefiled with these things that would have made them unclean — BECAUSE — the Father had cleansed them through their obedience to His instructions. They avoided the unclean and the common, and that cleansed them. What the Father has cleansed, do not call common or unclean.
** YHVH (or Messiah) never “cleansed” things that were not food according to Leviticus 11. Don’t run to Mark 7:19b, those words were added to the text in the 4th or 5th century and have nothing to do with what the Messiah said.
Starting the Race:
This means that Cornelius’ family was not common or unclean because they were already spiritually clean. The Torah says it is spiritual, that the heart is to be circumcised. Sha’ul reiterates that over and over, circumcision of the HEART makes one a Yehudi {let’s call that Israel, instead}, not physical circumcision. Inward versus outward.
The oral traditions of the Pharisees and their outward practice of the Torah were physical, not spiritual. Meaning, they only did it because that’s in the rule book for Judaism. Wash your hands a special way, wear your {yarmulke} a certain way at certain times and always, how to wash pots and pans, how to physically bless your food (to make it Rabbinical kosher — kashrut)…
These are all outward things. These specific practices listed are from Talmud, not Torah. Even their practice of the Torah was by rote, rather than through their spiritual heart. They did it because they were afraid of the death penalty.
Believers in Messiah practice Torah because we LOVE the one who already paid the death penalty for us. How we show love for the Father (and therefore by extension Messiah) is provided over and over in Scripture — those who guard His commands and do them. Be not hearers of Torah only, but doers of Torah.
Back to the pillars:
If you cannot enter the set-apart places to HEAR His Word, how do you ever learn it? The ironic piece is that even though the (not doing of these) practices are still foundational, we no longer need to go to a specific place to learn His Word. You’re on this app. You’re holding a portal to every version of Scripture available in your hand right now, already! Which is reason → number 4. (Thought I’d forgotten that?)
How can these four things remain the pillars of the Christian faith when, through opportunistic and obviously false interpretation, the specific reason for why they were given actually no longer applies? You don’t NEED to go anywhere to HEAR the Word — it’s in your hand already.
But you SHOULD go to LEARN the Word. Quite frankly, this app does not qualify as a place to “go” and I’m being generous.
** This does not mean that you can now do all these “do not dos” just because you no longer need to enter the Temple or Synagogue. Approaching the Father requires an undefiled heart, a cleanliness of Spirit (after the initial cleansing, that is). Intentional sin — deliberately choosing to live in disobedience — defiles our hearts and removes the King from His throne in our lives. It is deciding to DO what is right in our own eyes instead of DOING what is right in His. Obedience is the outcome, the manifestation of, salvation, and the empowerment of the Spirit of Elohim to give us the desire to be His servant.
