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I want to just say this, would those who say you need to be open-minded, would they also apply that kind of open-mindedness to the Church of the Latter-day Saints? I mean when Christians look at the book of Mormon and see the enormous problems of typography described in the book of Mormon. Seeing the King James English, I’m talking about Jacobean English quoted in some 20 chapters, quotes 20 chapters of Isaiah literally using King James. Why don’t they use, would they accept that kind of thinking and say, ‘Well, you should be a Mormon, you just got to be more open-minded.’ The answer is no. They don’t accept that so why not apply that kind of critical thinking to John? You see, Christians can understand that there may have been a mistake. I want to be clear about that. Christians will not leave the church because there’s a mistake in the New Testament. They’ll attribute the mistake [to] maybe a scribal error or mistakes happen. I’m telling you the way it is, but what Christians will not abide by is lying. They will not abide by changing historical datum in order to advance a theological point.
In Genesis 49:10, there Jacob on his death bed is blessing his children, Judah receives the most prominent and elaborate of the blessings. We call them blessings [but] if we read them, they really are descriptions of your destiny.
The claim that Jesus was sinless and the son of God can be traced back to the earliest surviving Christian literature. Paul says that Jesus was without sin, made an atonement…The idea that Jesus was completely righteous, but if he was the son of God and never sinned, then how is he righteous? That means, if I was born to a virgin and I was the son of God, I wouldn’t sin either. Why is David so amazing?…Because David made mistakes, he wasn’t perfect, far from it. What makes David different from everyone isn’t that he was born of a virgin, none of those things; is he really struggled in his life. You know David and Saul were zivugim. Zivugim means, it’s a concept in studying Tanakh that the Hebrew Bible places two people side-by-side to create a contrast in saturation…
If you’re born of a virgin and you’re the son of God of course you don’t sin. My tree is sinless, well it doesn’t have free will. It’s so silly. That’s what it really is, it’s silly. The whole notion that the son of God comes incarnate and he never sins, what’s the big deal? If I were the son of God, born to a virgin I wouldn’t sin either. What would he do? Would he go to (don’t get angry), but would he go into a gay bar? What are you talking about?
Paul’s theology was entirely different. He believed that the Law has been made a curse for us, he believed that God was done with the Torah, keeping the Law. You can see how Paul’s idea won out and that you don’t have to keep the Shabbos anymore. Second Corinthians, Paul talked, he’s done with the Sabbath and new moons and all these commandments are all done with them. Circumcision, that’s how Galatians really ends. He mocks people who insist on being circumcised and he says, ‘Why don’t you just cut the whole thing off?’ in Galatians 5:12. Which is a very, you know, you’re listening to that and going, ‘Really’? Well yeah, that’s exactly what he says. He says if you’re so committed to circumcision, why don’t you just essentially castrate yourself. Why don’t you just.. And you have to believe if you’re a Christian that God actually said that. You have to believe that circumcision, a rite given to Avraham Avinu (Abraham our father) and to his descendants in Genesis 17. You have to believe that same God is telling Paul to say, ‘Why don’t you cut the whole thing off?’
The ideas in paganism make sense, they really, it’s understandable why people would find these very attractive. It’s just not true, it’s not of God. If you believed that God was so great that He’s inaccessible and you can’t go directly to Him because He’s running the planets and He’s perfect, you’re so dirty, you are so sinful, God can’t look at you. So there has to be somebody that bridges the two. There has to be somewhere between God and man and Paul expresses that in 1 Timothy 2:5, ‘For there is one God and then one mediator between God and man, that’s the man Jesus Christ.’ Well that idea is utterly opposed by the Jewish Scriptures but could you understand how, you’ve been to church, you know this, you know that’s what they preach. You’re a sinner and God’s perfect, He can’t look at you. So in the pagan world everybody believed there was God. In the ancient world they use the term atheist…but they didn’t mean what we mean. Everyone really believed in God… but they thought that God was way up there, He’s like, perfect. But me, I’m fat, I’m a sinner, I can’t go to the Creator of the Heavens and Earth. In fact the Greeks to the Greco-Roman world, people didn’t pray to Zeus or Jupiter. You would have state affairs where they were celebrations and offerings brought to the great gods, but they didn’t have time for you. The Torah is there to tell us that you can do it. That Hashem loves you very, very much and that you could talk to Him. And not only that, He’ll listen to you, moreover, if you repent, God promises He’ll forgive you, and if you think you’re unforgivable, God says no! My ways are higher than your ways, My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, as the Heavens are higher than the Earth so too are my ways higher than your ways and My thoughts higher than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:6-9). So the message of the Prophets was one that appeals to your higher state…
Look at the State of Israel, if the Jews would have moved to Uganda as some Zionists would have wanted, I don’t think Satan, no one would have had a problem with it. If we would have gone to Upstate New York everyone would leave us alone. Oh you want to come to Israel? This already comes with challenges. That’s for sure the case.
The one thing I have no problem with is proselytizing. The problem I have with Jews for Jesus is everything but proselytizing. That means just spreading information out, that’s good information. The problem is the content of Jews for Jesus. I mean after all, there are health organizations in the United States that work feverishly to convince people not to smoke and that’s a good thing. They’re proselytizing, they have a great message. The problem I have with Evangelical Christians who are targeting Jews for conversion is really twofold. Number one, their message is terrible; for Jews to become Christians, abandon their faith, the God of Israel. To believe in a man as God, a person in a triune godhead. To abandon the Shabbat, to abandon the Torah, the very core principles of Jewish faith. That’s the nightmare, not that Jews for Jesus is proselytizing. After all, people with a great message should spread it. Just their message is a nightmare. The second issue I have with Jews for Jesus and groups like it, there are thousands that are very similar, is that they’re not being forthright in the way that they convert Jews. For example, they don’t use the word convert, they rather use terms like, become a Messianic Jew or completed Jew, fulfilled Jew, it’s the most Jewish thing you can do. So they engage in a practice that magicians engage in and that is to deflect, to misdirect. By using the name Yeshua instead of Jesus. Moshiach instead of Christ. They call it a Messianic Jew instead of convert to Christianity. Call it a Messianic congregation instead of a church. Well this is a word game. So that’s also particularly offensive so I want to make it very clear: The one issue with Jews for Jesus I do not have is that they are proselytizing. It’s the content of their proselytization. What are they spreading. That’s a terrible idea, number one. Number two is the manner in which they’re converting people and that’s by using deflection, by changing words, altering the content, so that’s very, very disturbing. And I believe the only response to that is education. So yes proselytizing is good as long as the message behind it is exceptional……I don’t know, the Ten Commandments sound like proselytizing. God’s saying, ‘I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods besides Me.’ That’s how the Ten Commandments opens. The Jews are supposed to be a light to the Nations. The Prophets were writing so that people would hear it. I mean why would we want to keep the faith of Israel a secret? I want everyone to know about my faith and I would like to address all the questions that people have. Maybe it’s because Christians have gone about trying to convert people in a way that so offensive. Force, the sword, being aggressive about it and using intimidation tactics to convert people. I think that’s what makes it so offensive frankly but the role of the Jew is to be a light to the nations. And here we’re in a predicament where Christian groups are very specifically targeting the Jewish Community for conversion. It only makes sense that someone has to respond to these outrageous claims. I certainly want to be one of those people.
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