From: tom@portland.mdc.unisys.com (Tom Albrecht)
Newsgroups: alt.messianic
Subject: Re: (Breaking the) Sabbath
Date: 7 Apr 92 19:31:30 GMT
Organization: Unisys - Applied Technology

In article <1992Apr6.084810.15741@pbs.org> btiffany@pbs.org writes:
>From: levene@aplpy.jhuapl.edu (Robert A. Levene)
>
>>Other posters have
>>triumphantly posted Xian tenets equating him with G-d, but none have
>>brought down a gemara or a mechaber or even an acharon his defense.
>
>The Word of God is the standard, not the word of the rabbis.  Why would one
>look to those opposed to the Messiah of Israel for a defense?

All Christians (including the Messianic Jews) accept the New Testament as
part of the revealed word of God.  For the Christian (ignoring differences
between protestant and catholic) it is the completion of God's revelation
to His people.  The Bible, the Old Testament and New Testament together,
tell us what God wants us to know about all things.

It's interesting to note some parallels between the Jewish oral writings,
the Talmud, and the Christian New Testament.  Both claim to provide
additional explanation of the written revelation of God given prior to the
coming of Jesus Christ.  The claim by the Jews is that the oral law was
given at the time of the written law, and was handed down faithfully from
the time of Moses till it was finally written around the second or third
century after Christ.  Jews tell us that the written law (the Bible) can
only be understood by taking into account the oral law.  And from their
perspective they are absolutely correct, because there is no doubt that the
"written law" was incomplete.  It needed to be explained in more detail in
order to be understood and, most importantly, acted upon.

Christians make the same claim for our New Testament.  We believe that the
older Testament was not intended to be a stand alone document, and that
further revelation from God was necessary in order for it to be properly
understood and applied.  The additional revelation came to us through the
agency of the apostles of Jesus Christ.  They recorded the teaching of
Jesus in what we call the gospels, and their acts in moving the religion of
Christianity from the territory of Judea out into the uttermost parts of
the world (at that time).

But perhaps the most important contribution of the apostles are the letters
written specifically to the newly founded "synagogues" of the followers of
Messiah.  Many of these Christian synagogues were started by a former
Jewish Pharisee named Saul (Paul) of Tarsus.  It was his task, in the
economy of God, to establish Christ's church as a community, not based
strictly on racial relationships, but on the common faith of Jesus Christ. 
His letters to the Churches, and to his associates, provided the early
believers with an invaluable foundation on which to construct the Church of
Jesus Christ.

It was this additional revelation that was given to the people of God by
the apostle Paul which gives the Church is distinctive universal character.
In fact in the earliest creeds of Christianity, we are corporately
referred to as the "one holy catholic and apostolic church."  The creed
teach us that our faith is universally founded on the teachings of the
apostles of Jesus Christ.

I believe the early success of the gospel in penetrating the whole world is
due to the universal appeal.  No longer was the religion of Yahweh limited
in scope to a small, insignificant nation in Judea.  For the first time it
could reach out into all the world, as promised in the writings of the
prophets.  Because of the apostles of Jesus, "the earth would be full of
the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the seas."

-- 
Tom Albrecht