Our Hebrew Roots?

I remember as a little kid hearing my parents and grandparents and basically anyone older than me talk about the good old’ days. Right? You know what I ‘m talking about. My dad use to have me convinced that when he was little, they couldn’t afford shoes for him to wear to school and somehow it was uphill both ways to school and back home. As a kid I thought there was one of two possibilities going on here in this strange past: either his parents moved every day there was school and it was always uphill from school, or something was up with the balance of the earth (and it always happened around school in and school out). The good old’ days.

There is a certain sense in the church that there were some good ole’ days. The days we need to get back to. This isn’t going to be about arguing for whether or not there were glory days or not. I think we can all agree that this world is a mess. It will be until Jesus comes back. I can’t help but think, however, that the Hebrew Roots Movement plays into that longing in many hearts. The Hebrew Roots Movement and all those knowingly or unknowingly associated with it, can generally be defined as a group of people who believe that the church has veered away from the true teachings of the Hebrew Bible. Many hold the belief that the New Testament was originally written in Hebrew, which challenges the true Greek texts and calls them into question. For them, the Christian and the church today must have a Jewish understanding of the New Testament. With their mindset, Christians today are still under the Mosaic Law.

Pastors, churches, and all believers, we must always be prepared for any challenges that come against the truth in scripture. In this case, people are coming into the church and spreading falsehood and lies. I’m reminded of the military terminology that Paul uses in his letter to Corinth in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. ” For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴ The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵ We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” It’s a spiritual attack. It’s a battle. Paul even spoke about this happening in his letter to the churches in Galatia. We have to know the truth. We have to speak and teach the truth. Finally, we must get all in the church to understand the truth, so that when they are faced with lies, they can stand and learn (as Paul so eloquently stated) to take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ.