Start an ad

How to Build a Spiritual Body

The basis of temporal and eternal power in the Body of Messiah

Introduction

In the most recent generation of non-Jewish Messianics, you can almost see and hear a mortal Fear overcome the body of Believers because they read that the Beast/Devil is given power to “make war on God’s holy people and to defeat them…” Rev.13:7 and that because this might be the last generation and we are His people, ipso facto, we are defeated; end of story; it is all pre-determined so don’t bother trying-to-do-anything mindset!

And what do the good Teachers say about taking ONE solitary scripture out of context??

Answer: Text, taken out of context, is pretext, meaning it is wrongful interpretation!

In fact, the same chapter of Revelation gives us a clue (called remez – see my last paper, “A Faith without a Body”) as to why not ALL people of the Body of Messiah will be defeated in the last 7 years on earth:

“If anyone is meant for captivity, into captivity he goes! If anyone is [meant] to be killed with the sword, with the sword he is to be killed!” verse 10 of chapter 13, which are allusions to Yirmeyahu 15 & 43. And then the end of that verse, “This is when God’s holy people must persevere and trust [have faith]”

Of course we should trust! When we see that, we will think “OMG, am I next??” But the very idea that WE, you and I, are predetermined to die or be defeated by ha-satan is totally delusional!! My name is not written in Revelation 13 so I don’t believe it is predetermined! It is a general statement written about the Body of Believers and you know what? I think the reason that general statement will come to pass is because what I write here, in this paper was not implemented and we will die and be defeated –

Or this mandate was heeded and we not only survived but defeated the worldwide machinations of the devil! We win to put it in the simplest form, by not taking the Mark of the Beast. The remez, the clue given in scripture that it isn’t forced upon us, that we have a choice, is that the same Revelation in 14:9-10 says we will be cast into hell fire forever for taking the Mark. Does anyone think that YHVH, the All-Merciful El, will do that if we didn’t have the choice to take the Mark?? Or what if someone sacrificed him/herself, took the Mark in order to save millions of people?? I think we are getting to the point where our theology is starting to get really ridiculous, to the point of NOT being a Faith anymore… I can think of several political scenarios where one could have the Mark before the Devil even tries to force everyone to take it!

And what does this introduction have to do with the title anyways??

Much in every way I would say. For one, the devil can’t attack the Body of Messiah if there isn’t one, as I stated in the previous paper “A Faith without a Body” (then again, one could say the Devil can easily conquer us if there isn’t a unified Body…yes, this could be true too). I believe there is destined to be a Body because Yeshua has been looking for One since the 4th or 5th century, the last time the Body of Messiah existed corporeally. Why would he give us a Mission if He knew the Devil could defeat it?? The Roman Catholics think they did and that the reason they still exist is proof that they are His Body. Makes sense from their perspective but they aren’t reading the Bible right – no Christian is.

In this paper, I offer quite literally, possibly, the last Hope Messianics have in order to function going forward. If we don’t come fully out of Bavel, I don’t mean just spiritually but physically as well, then we WILL die as the world will die and possibly lose our salvation! The sad thing about this whole topic is that it can’t be accomplished by any ONE Believer!

How so? That’s why this is written…

And I will quickly add before going into the corpus that this paper/topic is given very specifically to leaders of groups and congregations. It is not for everyone BUT if you have an engineer or System analysts’ mindset like I do and desire to see the big picture before looking at the parts, have at it. Otherwise, you would do well looking at other articles on this website.

Part 1: The First Messianic organization Ever

(This is actually building upon the last paper, “A Faith without a Body”. If you didn’t read that, you won’t know why I am saying what I do.)

Messianism has been so corrupted by Christianity.

I don’t mean by a little bit; I mean, almost to our very core. When I say “Messianism”, I mean both Jewish and gentile believers in our Faith. The Jews were infected by coming to Messiah through Christianity before they created formal Jewish sects like UMJC, etc. I covered that in the first book of “A Latter Day Testament”.

The non-Jews are even deeper into the swamp because we were immersed in it from birth. Even when “Hebraic Roots” Believers try to uncover the roots of their faith, they are still missing the mark on every major doctrine there is because they think that all there is to this sect called “Messianic, Hebrew Roots” et al is to replace Sunday for Sabbath-keeping, Christmas and Easter for the biblical holy days and eat kosher. That may be a good summary statement to sell to other Christians who may be on the fence, so to speak, but it is a far, far, FAR cry from what the true faith should look like! The reason why secular Europeans revolted against Christianity so fervently in the 19th century is because Christianity was not remotely practicing or being the nation that Yeshua desired to be raised up before he returned! That is the way Yeshua’s bride should be: either willing to be all in or all out! If you don’t want to conform your life, in every facet of your life, to what Torah says, then you might as well be a heathen and do whatever you want!

The problem in doing everything that He said to do is that the true power and beauty of our Faith cannot be fulfilled by ourselves alone! The real Testimony of our Faith can only be done collectively. We can do some things in Torah, individually, where we are but we cannot do ALL of Torah alone nor fulfill the Great Commission of Mattew 28 alone! The idea that we can is a very Christian concept and very perverted one, to start with.

It is my hope that the rest of this paper will demonstrate just how far off base we are when it comes to practicing everyday faith. For the rest of this part 1, I will attempt to emphasize the real organization of the original Messianic kehillah (whose very terminology, “Messianic”, is anachronistic, I would point out) that Yeshua and the Apostles built from the get-go…

We all know very well the Great Commission of Mattityahu 28:19-20 and some think the rest of the book of Ma’asim/Acts was a story built upon that mandate. This would be true but it DID NOT happen in the way you think it did. For one, Yeshua didn’t just tell every person to go out and just “preach the Gospel” to all creation (Mark 16:15). He did say that but if you take his other actions into account, such as in Luke 10:1, Yeshua sent people into the world in pairs of two, at the very least; more if labor permitted! This is not a mandate to individuals! (this much the J Witnesses and Mormons have to their credit). And although it’s initial goal is for salvation, that is NOT the end goal!! The end goal will be taken up at the end of this thesis.

It says in Ma’aseh 1:15 that 120 Believers were gathered together before Pentecost and we can know that this was the initial kehillah or congregation of people that Yeshua ministered to when he was incarnate because Kefa/Peter is addressing them.

Next chapter, 2:41, we see that 3,000 people were added to “Yeshua’s assembly” (we will call it for now). People kept being added daily (2:47b) until the number of men alone numbered 5,000 (Ma’asim 4:4), never mind the women and children! Could we say that the number of Believers in Yerushalayim grew to about 10,000??

Perhaps; but the question that everyone should ask that no one ever does is why did this happen?? How did this happen in such a short period of time?

The answer may surprise you if your paradigm is a Christian-based one.

When hundreds or thousands of people are “saved” at all once, Christians become enraptured at the idea that Elohim is “rebuilding his Church” but if you look closer, you will notice that it is often not a move of the Spirit because of the long-term fruit produced. It can be for real but let us look closer at what Scripture recorded because it gives us a clue, in the natural, why hundreds and then thousands of people became Messianic in the first few years.

Some may think it was the powerful preaching of Kefa that bought in all those lost souls. Yes, his Pentecost sermon was spirit-moving. Yes, it stirred people to action. What did all the followers of Yeshua’s flock do after that Pentecost? (And no, it was not the “birth of the Church”!)

This is what the history of the original, 1st century Believers recorded in Ma’asim 2:41-47:

“so those who accepted what he said were immersed, and there were added to the group that day about 3,000 people.

They continued faithfully in the teaching of the emissaries, in fellowship, in breaking bread and in the prayers. Everyone was filled with awe, and many miracles and signs took place through the emissaries. All those trusting in Yeshua stayed together and had everything in common; in fact, they sold their property and possessions and distributed the proceeds to all who were in need. Continuing faithfully and with singleness of purpose to meet in the Temple courts daily, and breaking bread in their several homes, they shared their food in joy and simplicity of heart, praising God and having the respect of all the people. And day after day, the Lord kept adding to them those who were being saved.”

This, my brethren, was the first Messianic organization after Yeshua’s death and resurrection. This was not a “Church”. You have never seen a “church” like this anywhere if you are honest with yourself.  Ruach ha-Elohim had organized the beginning of a Messianic community.

I don’t need to propound on this scripture right now because it says everything about the Body of Messiah that Paul spoke about later. If anyone wants to “go back to the beginning” or “back to the faith once delivered”, this is it. This is the goal and the rest of this paper will reveal how to reach the goal, if your heart is to be Yeshua’s modern day talmidim/disciples.

Part 2: The Wills of Elohim and Fellowship

In Book 2 of “A Latter Day Testament”, I wrote about the “Wills” of Elohim. I do not wish to reiterate this concept here because it is somewhat outside the scope of this thesis but I will summarize it because it is foundational to religious organization.

Believers always speak about the “Will” (singular) of Elohim because He is Almighty (El Shaddai) and no one can stand in his way, which is true, but He also gave Mankind this concept we call “Freewill”. You can’t point to a scripture that says that but we know it is true because the entire biblical story talks about choices people make and Yah never forces anyone to do anything unless it is to fulfill prophecy; even then, the Will of the person must line up with Elohim’s. But what happens when a sinful person doesn’t do Elohim’s Will? Can we thwart the Plan of God??

That’s just plain silly – but it begs the question for an answer!

Paul gives us such an answer in Romans 12:2 (in most Bible translations) in which he urges us to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”

The first thing to note is that he is speaking to individuals but what is spoken to individuals I say is true of the Collective since we are all members of a collective Body.

Secondly, note how Paul speaks of Yah’s “Will” (in the singular) but yet, he says in perfectly plain [Greek] that there are 3 options or results. Elsewhere in Ibrim/Hebrews, it says that we are living this life in order to discern the things of the flesh with the spirit.

If you put all the scriptures together on this subject, it becomes plain that we can fulfill what HE wants in our life/lives by choosing to do what is acceptable, good (what we call “better” in English) or perfect. I say “options” or “choices” because this scripture follows in perfect line with Yeshua’s parables of the Talents (as we call it). Some might be given one reward when he returns, some 5 or 10 and yet others, hundreds! It is up to each one of us individually – AND to us collectively because like I said earlier, we can’t do everything individually!

The Acceptable: A Fellowship

Since this is a paper about the Body of Messiah and there is no Messianic community in Yerushalayim nor a Temple with Priests, we must talk about what we CAN do in the world and build up to HIS ideal or what Paul called His “perfect Will”.

Like I said, we live in Rome/Babylon(Bavel) which is a term to indicate we live in bondage in the world, even here in America. What is Yeshua’s Gospel call to all who will listen to him??

“Come out of her my people…” Revelation 18:4 (to be sure, the main Gospel message is to be saved but after we respond to that, this is what He says.)

What does that mean and more importantly, what does that look like??

In this Age in which we are scattered to the four Winds, we cannot do much if the spirit of Bavel or Rome or take your pick, has us living in the world among heathens. Our first reaction upon hearing the Messianic Gospel is to find others who believe what you have been convicted of.

Sadly, in this Day and Age, we are so scattered that we have to drive pretty far to find others “of like mind” as we often say.

That doesn’t matter. Vayikra 23:3 tells us that we are to congregate every Sabbath because it is his holy day. In an Age when vehicles are becoming more expensive, it is necessary to take that into account but by all means, if we can fellowship every Sabbath without ruining our lifeline to live modern life, we should do so because that is His command.

What is a Fellowship of new Believers supposed to do??

Many people who come into this Faith think they are not “new” because they have been in Christianity for X years and that would be a major fallacy – more on that later.

What every person in a Fellowship should be doing every Sabbath is to

  1. Worship YHVH
  2. Learn about His ways – study bible, etc.
  3. Get to know one another

These three things will be true at every organizational level so if you master this as a group at fellowship level, you can do the next two levels to be discussed.

Getting to know each other is really important at this level but it doesn’t mean to be just acquainted with one another (conocer in Spanish). It really means to learn to love one another if you don’t naturally love them because Yeshua cannot use anyone in His Body if they don’t love one another. Yochanan emphasized this in 1 Yoch. 4:20 when he said, “For if a person does not love his brother, whom he has seen, then he cannot love God, whom he has not seen”. This goes back to the Jewish exegetical precept where the spiritual cannot be true if the pashat, or in this case, the worldly level is not true. If you don’t love your Brother, you don’t love Elohim, Yochanan was saying.

Worshipping and studying the Word is self-evident.  What is not is that studying should only be done with an experienced teacher and reading the Word can be done individually.

And another point on fellowships: since a fellowship is NOT a congregation, a teacher can be female at this level because there are no commands about fellowship structure in scripture – only about kehillot/congregations and communities.

If this is what a group of 10 people or less can only do to fulfill Yah’s command about Sabbath, he would say this is “acceptable”; he will bless this cell group.

BUT…. Elohim always asks more of us in this life. Always. He is always testing our heart(s).

At this point, I must address those who justify having the (home) Fellowship and never desire to live at a higher spiritual level, saying that meeting in homes is what they initially did and thus, that is all the Father desires:

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG!

YES, Yeshua will bless those who worship as Fellowships. If that is all they can do, Yah bless them.

To point to Ma’asim 2:46 or Philemon verses 2 and 17 and say that meeting in people’s homes is the Will of Elohim is to take these scriptures out of context. Both of them are pulled out of context and will be taken up later.

Part 3: The Better way: A Kehillah/Congregation

A question that naturally arises is when is a group of Believers a fellowship or a congregation? Almost all the places where Messianic and Christian assemblies meet use the terms “fellowship”, “Congregation” or “community” synonymously but as this paper will show, these are very different modes of collective worship of the Lord. The Bible is not explicit on this but they are not synonymous terms.

One is that it should reflect the reality of where the people are at. In Jewish circles, a “chavurah” (fellowship) indicates that there are very few people in the group and that they don’t have a “permanent” meeting place and/or don’t have an ordained rabbi to lead them. In the Messianic/Hebrew Roots world, if the people don’t live near each other (quite common in this age), are only a handful and aren’t committed to each other, then they aren’t a “congregation” but a fellowship/chavurah. Some people get quite offended at the way I define these 3 modes of organization but reality dictates what the group is.

Another point of contention is if I say that a group is 10-12 people or less, it is a fellowship but if more than that, it is a congregation. Why do I say that? One is because our “Hebrew roots” of the faith should be a guide to organization. Secondly, a small handful of Believers – 3,5,10 – can do something as a group but just not as much as a congregation of people can do. This shouldn’t be offensive to someone who is leading a home fellowship because the world of Biology and Genetics gives us a “natural” clue as to why a fellowship is a good or acceptable thing whereas a congregation is the “better way”:

Geneticists have queried on how a species can be populated in a way that is healthy and permanent and it is no surprise to me given the numerology revealed in scripture that if you only have a few people, and you keep breeding in that same group, that cohort may indeed multiply but within time, if there is no new infusion of genes, that group will degenerate, be unhealthy and disappear from existence! Anyone who knows Yah’s general Will knows that that is NOT his will – for a people to become extinct. That is the exact opposite of what he wants which is for everyone to live forever!

The lesson from this is (in which I believe is true spiritually): if you have 12 or more people to begin with, even if they breed among themselves (which is what Israel was supposed to do), they will have a big enough genetic pool to multiply and never have to worry about becoming extinct. In other words, small is ok but it is temporary; larger is better, stronger. How else does one explain the tendency in ancient Israel and Yeshua himself to build in multiples of 12?? Twelve itself is not a magical number; neither is any other but the Bible does give a clue (remez) that 12 seems to be a number for Organization.

[Since many Americans of this generation are familiar with Star Trek: the Next Generation, I would refer the reader to one episode where the crew discouver a planet of human survivors in which they could not leave. The number of survivors were only 5 and because they couldn’t develop the means to escape this planet, they ended up breeding with only 3 men and 2 women. After 200 years, when the Next Generation crew arrives, the people inform them that their small civilization is dying because of the lack of new genes/people to breed with. Fortunately, the Enterprise had a solution for them and if you never saw it, I will leave the conclusion with you to discover… a truly classic episode now]

We have deviated somewhat from the subject at hand which is a congregation so let us return with some background understanding of why Elohim would consider this “a better way” …

 If and when you can attract a group of 10-12 committed Believers (and I stress “committed” here), besides setting new lofty goals, one of the first things this group should do is buy a meeting hall/building for the people to meet in. The reason I say “first” will have to wait until part 4 of this paper – it will make a lot more sense then.

Some people may point out that 10 people may not be able to afford property. This is true: in some places, fewer than 10 can afford a place but more often than not, 10 individuals may not be enough. I would quickly add here that I am not talking about the tithes of 10 people but rather the tithes and personal money of 10 people. The reason that I say this group should be pitching in their personal money to buy a meeting hall and property is because to be a congregation, there should be the beginning of accountability – and leadership. That doesn’t mean there isn’t accountability in a home fellowship but that there is no reasonable way to fulfill this effectively. Fellowships are about getting to know your brothers and sisters, kind of like dating; Congregations/kehillot are about getting more serious in your relationships, kind of like a betrothal.

What I just said above about accountability, leadership and betrothal are all very heavy subjects and we will delve into each of them somewhat but this thesis is not meant to be exhaustive on these subjects!

 Building a congregation is better than a fellowship but to expand what I said above, when you have a group of 10 people or less who meet only on Sabbath, there is no effective way to establish accountability because you can’t establish leadership with so few people. The problem is summarized in the old (American) adage, “too many chiefs and too few Indians”. If there are 5 regular people in the group and 2 are “leaders” and they want to extend leadership to 1 or 2 others, over whom are they leading?? What I just described happened to us once in one fellowship and I had to decline because they didn’t have committed people even though they might get 10 attendees on a Sabbath. The point is: Leadership and Accountability come with the establishment of a kehillah/congregation.

And to further add to the paradigm: when you date a girl, that girl is NOT required to obey or follow the direction of the man at that point because that woman is NOT his wife. They are just dating and trying to get to know one another. So it is in a fellowship. If someone is eager to build the next great kehillah or better yet, a community, they have to wait and get there first. You have to get your ducks in order and build commitment from others first.

If and when you can get a larger group and they are willing and able to buy a meeting hall, THEN you can start doing more substantive things like meeting more than 1x a week; you can establish social or work clubs; you can begin studying Bible together…

Which brings me back to a point I made in “A Faith Without a Body”: the reason Messianism, Hebrew Roots, et al are such a weak religion is because our people are studying the Bible by themselves, at home, and there is absolutely no common or cohesive understanding of our faith like the Catholics, Mormons, J Witnesses have. If we number in the 50-100k level, we have approximately 20-40k different sects within our faith (and sometimes bad ones at that) who all think they “know it all” because some will say, “the Ruach is my teacher” and thus, you have 20-40,000 who will never yield to others in the Body because they were taught that studying the Bible is all they need to do to be good Believers!

Such evil monsters we have created!

YES, studying the Bible is good.

YES, it should be done ahead of other things in life.

YES, you will grow to know Elohim’s general and specific Wills in life…BUT YESHUA THE MESSIAH, COHEN HA-GADOL, IS THE HEAD OF A BODY, NOT OF INDIVIDUALS!! That is what Paul was telling the Ephesians and Corinthians if you want to make Paul the Arbiter of the “New Testament”.

You can read the Bible at home but when a teacher is raised up at (the Congregational or Community) level, everyone should be studying with the teacher where they are at. We live in the age of Internet and while it is possible to learn from dozens or hundreds of awesome teachers, they should be supplementary only. Congregations who hold services online every week should be warning people of this and I never hear anyone, anywhere encourage the (uncommitted) internet watchers to find a congregation near them. At no time are internet watchers part of that “community”, as I will readdress before the end of this paper.

As part of a kehillah, if people get an interest in doing an outreach, the Leadership should encourage the members to do so and even give training, if the Leadership has applicable experience. Just because a non-leader has more experience than the Leadership team in some area doesn’t mean the Leaders aren’t leaders. If you aren’t in leadership, DO what Yah has led you to do but remember to obey your local leaders –THIS is the true meaning of Romans 13. Your leaders are those of the kehillah, not of the secular government. (That is a book length subject in itself. I started that topic in “To Obey or Not Obey Government. That is only the tip of the iceberg.)

And right along with this subject is that of those who aspire to create another congregation:

Quite often, when a kehillah starts to get a bit bigger or someone new comes in who is rather mature, sometimes (very often in our circles) members want to start a new kehillah because they get a different vision or have strongly differing opinions on doctrine. This is not entirely wrong. In fact, this is, or should be looked at as a Natural progression of bodily growth. When the Leadership sees this occurring in their kehillah, they should not resist or suppress such a spiritual movement. While the Aspiring One has no right to divide the local body, the Leadership should help (yes, HELP) that person to establish one in due time.

I wish that someone in the faith could see what I have seen in 20+ years of the Messianic faith: I have NEVER seen a Messianic Pastor or teacher do this right. The typical action is to disfellowship the one of differing opinion and thus, you get what we have now – A faith without a Body (hence why I wrote that and keep referring to that. It is so monumental!)

To add to that point: it should be recognized by ALL Believers everywhere that while a unified Doctrine is good, Doctrine does NOT MAKE THE BODY OF MESSIAH. Doctrines are the bones that shape the Body but they are NOT the Body itself. The Body is you, I and our Messiah and everyone else. When you understand that your personal Doctrines are some of your idols in life, then, and only then will you start seeing your brother as important as yourself; Phillipians 2:4; Galatians 6:2-3.

If you can manage to keep a group of 13-100 people (just throwing out numbers here) healthy and happy and the kehillah appears to show signs of further growth, then the Leadership should begin thinking about becoming a community, the ultimate desire of Yeshua!

Part 4: the perfect Will of Elohim: A Community

I stated earlier that a kehillah/congregation is like a betrothal. You got past dating and you liked the people so much that one should see themselves as if “betrothed” to the brethren in a congregation setting. That is one reason why I also stated that in a congregation, everyone involved should take part in buying a meeting hall. It is equivalent to a bride’s price but it also sets the people up to take their congregational experience to a new level, if they should choose to do so!

Remember: The Father nor the Son forces their subjects to do anything in particular. That is the difference between this world’s governing authorities and the True Authority!

A Community organization is not only the greatest expression of faith on this side of Eternity, Yeshua and the 12 Talmidim expected this to be the Norm! You will note from this point on in the paper, Yeshua DID NOT come to create “a Church/The Church”. That is the biggest failure of Christianity and why they are not the Body. As I said in the preceding paper to this one I keep referring to, we are not that Body either – BUT because we have and accept the true Word of Elohim, we can be that Body!

Let us begin looking at the differences between a Community and that of a congregation or fellowship.

I am going to start off by shocking everyone out of their false paradigms by saying: Christianity longs for some great spiritual Revival and everyone to get saved that can be in this age and the reason that they don’t receive it (much less us) is because they are NOT set up nor equipped to do such a thing! The original Messianic community holds the key to everything we seek for in YHVH Elohim’s kingdom. We saw a genuine revival of sorts this year at a Christian school in Kentucky. It is summer time now; what has happened to that “revival”?? What did it do? Did it bring in hundreds or thousands of new converts to the faith like in Ma’asim/Acts 2?

I’ll tell you why no camp meeting nor weekend Revival will ever create Elohim’s perfect Will:

Where do you find a place where Believers “continued faithfully in the teachings…in fellowship and breaking of bread”? Where do you see “everyone stayed together and had everything in common” or where they meet daily in one place?? This is what our Messianic brethren did in Ma’asim/Acts 2 and 4 and in the book of Philemon.

The answer is: almost nowhere. Can we say even 1% of all Messianic or Christian organizations are a community? Maybe not even that many and those who are, struggle with becoming too cultic. I can point people to those few places where they exist but the reason we don’t see masses of people coming to us is because we are too divided! The reason we can’t fulfill the Great Commission is because we are not set up to do what they did!! Pure and simple! The funny thing is, I don’t need to go too far into a teaching on community because people do know what it is but don’t know how to get there or are unwilling.

To the latter group: if you are unwilling or don’t believe that is the highest calling – that is fine! You don’t subtract from what I do nor do I to you. You will have a reward and there should be no hard feelings —

BUT you should also understand that you are not THE Body but only a part of the Body of Messiah. In Paul’s analogy, a Community network (which is what all the epistles to the “churches” were – correctly translated as “Communities” in the CJB) is the central torso of a human body. The hands, arms, legs, feet, digits all serve the torso of the Body and the torso, which contains the heart, serves the Head, which Paul said is Messiah Yeshua (and the Malkitzedekian priesthood would be the neck by analogy).

If you are part of the former group who just don’t know how to get there or are in the process of building to that stage, read on…

Remember how I said a congregation and their members should buy a meeting hall to hold in common? The first reason is so they always have a place to gather and aren’t paying someone else who is not a Believer. Secondly, it is to begin creating accountability to one another. If someone says they “love” their kehillah/congregation but aren’t willing to chip in to buy, you know where they really stand.

The third and just as important reason is because it automatically sets up those people to do a greater Work, if they so choose, collectively. In a congregational setting, the people still live in Babylon or Rome (pick your analogy): they work in the world; they commute to the meeting hall every Sabbath or activity. That is why you see these mega-churches with huge parking lots – They are showing the world by their collective choices that they live in the world full-time but do church part-time, whether it is 2 hours a week or 15.

This is NOT what we see in the original Messianic communities!

The only thing greater than being “employed” of the Lord part-time or temporarily is to be employed full-time! What does that mean??

Primarily, it means that EVERYONE should move into the neighbourhood around that building (which is what the Jerusalem Community did) or b.) they should buy/build common tenement buildings for people to worship, eat, study together, etc. if they don’t have enough money. This is why “, they sold their property and possessions and distributed the proceeds to all who were in need”. It is the ONLY reason why this explosive group of Nazarenes nearly turned the Roman empire UPSIDE DOWN!!  The Roman Empire did not become true Believers (Christian); they tried to EMULATE the TRUE Body of Messiah who were the Messianics or as early Christianity called them, “Nazarenes” and tried to wipe out the true faith. That is why you can’t find any Messianic body from about the 5th century to the 19th. You had some Sabbath-keeping Christians but they were not Messianic! That took an act of Elohim to resurrect.

With a Community, you can do:

  • The shakarit or minchah prayers (morning and evening prayers)
  • You become THE public schools because your neighbourhood is the majority. If local or state laws prevent you from running the schools as you want, you build Messianic academies since we will have a continual supply of children
  • You can create work training programs, both for “in-house” work and in the world (trade work perhaps)
  • You can do collective outreach which can never be done in a congregation or fellowship such as feeding the Poor, produce Media outlets, a radio station, etc.
  • All of this may take more than a tithe to do. That’s ok. This is the only way you can do so. If you live in Bavel/Rome, you don’t have any extra money beyond a tithe to give because you have to provide for yourself and family if you are not a community.
  • You can host a Sukkot gathering and a place to spend your festival tithe (but I wouldn’t recommend creating dozens of Sukkot sites as we do now – I might go into that by the end)
  • That community can create their own police/county force (for real)

None of this takes any imagination because if you have seen any Chasidic or Amish community, all of these are done and they will never disappear because they work together as One – the real context of Ephesians 4 (yes, the Chasidim have established their own police in places. Why shouldn’t they? Why do we always assign certain things for “the world” to do but not us?? I come against everyone in that point)

Community organization doesn’t take much explaining because we are already a part of some secular community where we live. The problem is that we don’t do it with other Messianic Believers! That’s what the Spirit means when she says, “Come out of Babylon”. It isn’t an allegorical calling of just coming spiritually out, like Christianity says, it means to do it literally! But how can we do that if no medium is provided or our teachers aren’t teaching this??

You can’t, which is why the world, or should I say, the demonic Progressive community, is swallowing you alive, wholesale! If the anti-Christ isn’t here already, HIS body is! We have had nearly THREE generations to prepare for this monster; whose fault is it if we become subsumed by them??

Initial Conclusions

There are many conclusions that can be drawn from this thesis.

One is that we are ALL saved, individually, at some point in our adult lives. What Christianity fails to inform those who go from death to life is that once we are given our (initial) salvation (another topic entirely), we are born into a Body of a multitude of other Believers. It isn’t “us and God alone” – that is an entirely wrong, and very self-centered image of our faith; some would even call that narcissistic. It has NEVER been about oneself and our salvation. No apostle nor the Lord ever insinuated that it was even though the Brit is written in a way that sounds like it is.

Having said that, the next question or observation should be:

If I am not alone in salvation, and there are other like-minded Believers out there like you and me, what is my relationship to them?? This is no small question that we should be asking ourselves. As I have been saying, which is not my teaching but Paul’s to the Corinthians, is that we are all part of a Body. We should be identifying what those other parts of the Body are and trying to connect with them on a local, regional, and national level. Hebrew Roots, Messianic Believers are far too atomistic in their approach to matters of the Faith. You, an individual, are like a cell. Do you think you would have a Body if your cells decided not to be attached to other cells that make up your body parts?? Without body parts, where would be the Body??

I am not speaking sod level material here and you don’t need to be a Biologist to understand what I just asked. YOU KNOW that a Body, the Body of Messiah, would not exist without body parts or cells – you know that – and yet what do you do and what do we do, collectively, to be that corporeal Body that witnesses to the world?

If you say, “I do my part to be a witness”, great! Your share of Rewards will not be taken away from you! But do you do it as part of your fellowship, your kehillah/church or Yah forbid, as part of a community (a biblical one that I described above, not your concept of one!)??

The reason that we are a Faith without a Body (my preceding paper to this one) is that we don’t submit to someone else in the Body – and I would be so bold as to say that even those who have large ministries or churches don’t submit to the greater Body…. I know any large organizational leader will not like what I just said, but it is entirely true! We aren’t a force to be reckoned with on planet earth because we haven’t submitted to each other even though everyone will say, “yeah, I am submitted to Yeshua my Lord”. That’s a cop out because Yeshua’s kingdom is an ordered kingdom and if you are submitted to the Head, then you need to be submitted to the other people He has called.

This is not a radical concept either, as some might say after reading this. We read the Bible; we know that Israel was both a spiritual and corporeal Kingdom. The most famous era was the Davidic reign. Everyone had a place in Israel; no one was a lone wolf (except the Neviim who were called by YHVH). Everyone was submitted to everyone else.

Believers act like it is different today (wonder where they get that concept??) but of course, Yah’s paradigm does not change. We are the Grafted-In of Israel (not natural descendants of Israel as our predecessors used to teach) and we have a King and we have a place in Israel.

To whom are we submitted? (I presently belong to a local kehillah as of this writing FYI)

As I draw this conclusion to a very funneled conclusion, I will offer up clues to what direction we should go and then I will challenge Leaders, by name, as to their relationship with the Body because NO ONE is not under SOMEONE’S authority in Yeshua’s kingdom. If you think you are, I would question whether you really are in the Kingdom….

Final Conclusions

In this paper, I have made the (biblical) case for organizational Body building. Yeshua has a perfect Will for each of us individually. We can try to fulfill that perfect Will but we never will because our purpose only becomes fulfilled when we join up with His Body.

Then there is His collective Will for us. I have made the case that Community is His perfect Will for all of us because we can’t have a nation without communities. Communities are the building block of nations – NOT churches or fellowships. Those are just organs or body parts that make up the Body. It is the Body that Witnesses to the world of Yeshua ha-Mashiach; it is the King that establishes Righteousness for that Body; it is the Body who must submit to the Head or die; it is the Body, ultimately, that will stand…or fall, before the Anti-christ that I mentioned in the introduction.

There is a two-tiered way of organizing.

The first is that individuals should go to and become involved with a fellowship – and I will say this as an aside that I wrote in ALDT book 2 and that is, those who get online every Shabbat and act like they are doing “church” in someone’s chatroom is not even practicing Sabbath-keeping; they are not of the Body! Sorry if you are one who does but just because Technology makes something possible does not mean it is His Will to use. And those churches that enable people to do that clearly do not understand the Will of Yeshua either. It is a very bad, and new practice.

If you are part of a fellowship, then you should be attempting to be under the umbrella of a kehillah/church or trying to aim to be a local kehillah/church. You see this in a few places but not nearly what it should be.

 If you are a local Messianic kehillah, then you should be attempting to be under the umbrella of a Messianic Community or aiming to become one. Because there are only a handful of true, biblical communities, it would seem that there needs to be more of these so that people can have something to aim for, not to mention that it is His perfect Will for us.

Along this line, we have another tool to help us guide toward a stronger organization:

Again, using the Messinaic PaRDeS study system, we can also make a principle that the smaller fiefdom defers to the larger fiefdom. Is this not how our very own country is organized?? The city submits to the State and the state to the Federal. This isn’t by accident. Our American forefathers were Bible Believers which is one reason why we became as great as we did. If Paul said “there is no authority except those from God” in Romans 13:1 and YHVH blesses a church so that they become numerous, is this not a clue that Yah’s Spirit might be working in that place?? I am not saying ALL ministries are blessed by Elohim just because they are large in number. Some preachers may be speaking to the flesh or the people want to hear just the milk of the Word and if you try to teach them there is more to do (there always is by the way!), they may shrug you off or even come against you!

No, numbers aren’t THE clue as to whether it is of Elohim or not but if they are preaching and doing Truth, they are ordained of Yah!

Finally, I will say that if you are feeling like your city, your state or the federal government is becoming too evil and you are one who thinks we may fall prey to the Beast government (that still has not arrived, mind you), you CAN do something about it. Evil has abounded in the western nations because the Believers have submitted themselves to temporal authorities. Yes, you were born in this world and are obligated to your secular government to some degree…BUT then you were born again from above and now you are of a spiritual kingdom. If Evil has abounded in “Christian” nations, it is because they have submitted to the wrong “authorities”. The spiritual always trumps the corporal or secular. Submit to those who you believe have spiritual authority and Yeshua will see to it that you escape Tribulation – just like He did in ancient Egypt. Overcoming the Beast system means Submitting; this much Islam has right and does better than us!

Epilogue: Case-in-point: What are you larger kehillot really trying to accomplish?

As I stated in the introduction, this particular paper is more focused towards those who are already Leaders in the Kingdom. I have been in the Messianic faith over 20 years now and while we were one of the fastest growing faiths at the turn of the century, I would typify our faith as barely “subsisting” these days. No, it is not complementary.

Partly, it is our collective fault and partly, it is the fault of the Messianic Jews, our other brethren, who cast us out of their kingdom over a decade ago because we had one particular doctrine that was wrong but then they went on to establish their “anti-christ” gospel (that I call it. See ALDT book 1). That is water under the bridge. Messianic non-Jews can become Yah’s holy nation so long as they have disqualified themselves. We know Yechezquel 37 will be fulfilled someday but not today or anytime soon.

It is up to us to become the Body.

Of recent years, I have seen some hopeful stirrings among Messianic non-Jews. There are a few really good larger Messianic assemblies that are arising in the United States (I can’t speak for outside North America) that have the potential to do something really GREAT but I don’t see the steps being taken to do what needs to be done. I will confess to you some of these organizations so that more people will look to them but to also question, why aren’t some of you (all) going to the next logical stage of becoming a Community organization? As I outlined in this paper, no local fellowship or kehillah can do such a thing without a huge number of people being involved. Communities are highly organized; they have structure; they have finances and so on. The first problem in getting there is that these larger kehillot/churches do not have a way for new members to become invested in. The FIRST step beyond the fellowship level is for everyone to be vested in the meeting building. If the meeting building is owned by just one person or a small oligarchy, then when division comes (NOT IF), the owners can kick everyone out who is not an owner and the majority of people are forced to obey the owners or be without a place to meet.

Let us look at some of these organizations that have great potential.

Beth Yeshua International

BYI has grown in the past decade to be a really fine kehillah. They have many people who attend. They have a good reputation among Yah and men and I will attribute this to the leader and teacher Greg Hershberg whom I was attracted to very early on. There is nothing, and I mean nothing evil that could be said about this rabbi (a kosher one, mind you, not affiliated with any Messianic Jewish denomination). He has developed a few affiliates with international leaders which is why they can be properly called “international” but no affiliates here in the states. They have one of the nicest buildings in GA but it is situated in a more affluent neighbourhood that is barrier for them to becoming a Community. Too many organizations buy into rich neighbourhoods, have everyone commute to the worship hall, tear up more of our land to make concrete heat islands instead of buying into the poorer neighbourhoods so that people can move into it when the Spirit moves them.

Mr. Hershberg has the spirit and character of Yeshua; he should be listened to and feared but I for one, would really like to see them become a leader among all Messianics.

Corner Fringe Ministries

CFM isn’t as well known nationally as some of these other organizations I list but they are growing in stature and they are attempting to build a network here in the states. I haven’t visited their shul/kehillah yet so I don’t know what possibilities exist for them becoming Communal. They have a leadership team, which is good and I presume, an overseer to Daniel Joseph who does great teachings. But like all the church organizations listed here, they are limited to growing higher and deeper in the Lord if the people aren’t invested or allowed to be invested in the mother Congregation.

They aren’t dogmatic on some issues that other Messianics do, which is good but on the other hand, I would watch out for potential confusion on the Messianic identity since they don’t have a problem using the Christian names of our Lord and the Apostles. ”Sacred Namers” among us have become a little cultish on the name of our Creator but there is a reason Messianism uses Hebrew names!

Tents of Jacob and Messianic Torah-Observant Israel

I will address these two Kehillot together because they provide a perfect example of what I mean by the need to define themselves to each other and still other Messianics.

First of all, I will say that I am well acquainted with both of them. They are based in the same city of Cleveland, TN but given the management styles, if you will, of both Bill Cloud and Steve Berkowitz, I will state up front that they should remain separate kehillot and not join their ministries, as most should if they reside in the same city or county. This is because they operate differently. That’s not bad in this case. It can be beneficial to the Body and to the world – ONLY if they define themselves to each other. Where are they in the Body? What do they do that the other doesn’t? These are all organizational questions that Leadership should ask and then work with their Brother “across the aisle”, so to speak, so as not to be creating dual ministries that compete.

The Body of Messiah complements one another; not competes!

Having said that, I would ask of these two as I would of any large Kehillah: what process do they have for present or newer attendees to invest in their infrastructure so they can take it to the next level??

I’ll say the same thing to kehillot/churches that I say to fellowships: if you don’t want to transform your kehillah to a biblical community, that’s fine. Yah will reward you accordingly… but no matter how large your church gets, you ain’t the torso of the Body of Messiah. You’re still a body part and you must serve those who aim to be the torso or heart of Messiah (or the neck depending on your analogy).

We all know where the center of Chasidism and Mormonism resides: the former in NY City and the latter in Salt Lake City. They didn’t become denominations by doing what WE do!! WE have the potential to make Cleveland, TN the center of non-Jewish Messianism. And if they rise to the challenge, we may yet see those “greater Works” that Yeshua said we could do but that is a big IF!! If not, well, we may yet become the Victims that Yeshua promised in Revelation 13…