General Info 1: Intro to Messianic Judaism.
The Name of God
The Torah gives the following firm warning regarding the utterance of the Sacred Name of God:
Exodus 20:7 "You are not to use lightly the name of ADONAI your God, because ADONAI will not leave unpunished someone who uses his name lightly.There are a lot of people today who treat the Holy Name of God lightly. They utter the Name (or some misunderstood version of It) as though it were any other common name. These people do so at their peril as the above command makes clear. The Sacred Name should only uttered or written with full intention and respect. It is the most sacred Name in all existence.
For this reason, throughout these lessons we will refer to the God of Israel primarily as "HaShem" (The KING/the NAME) and Adonai (The LORD): properly pronounced: "Adonoy."
As HaShem He is King of kings. As Adonai He is Lord of lords (compare Psalm 82).
HaShem is ONE and His Son is Y'shua (John 3:16).
Messianic Jews are people who accept Y'shua (Jesus) as their mediator with the God of Israel as taught in the Bible. These people embrace the Jewish religion as taught by Y'shua and his disciples. Judaism began around 1280 B.C.E. (B.C.). Y'shua reformed Judaism around 30-33 C.E. (AD).
Nicene Christians are people who (knowingly or not) accept the teachings of the Nicene Creed for their beliefs. Most Christians embrace these doctrines. Properly speaking the religion of Christianity (called "Nicene Christianity" throughout these lessons) was established by Emperor Constantine in 325 C.E. (A.D.) at the First Council of Nicea. To read this document Go here
Messianic:
Authentic Messianic Judaism maintains that Y'shua the Nazarene (commonly referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth") was and is the Messiah of Israel. We affirm that his name in Hebrew is not "Jesus" but Y'shua (Yeshua). This is confirmed by the following verse:
Matthew 1:21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Yeshua, [which means `ADONAI saves,'] because he will save his people from their sins."The name Y'shua (or Yeshua) means exactly this: Yah Saves (Yah being the shortened form of the Holy Name of the God of Israel). The name "Jesus" means something completely different.
Throughout these lessons we refer to the God of Israel as HaShem (The KING/the Name) and Adonai (The LORD). As HaShem, He is King of kings. As Adonai, He is Lord of lords (compare Psalm 82). To honor God's True Name all Jews avoid using it as we explain in latter lessons.
Judaism:
Judaism refers to the religion and culture of the House of Judah, including those "grafted" or adopted into it through Y'shua. For our present purposes, the Jewish people can be thought of as the people in the Bible known as the Israelites. There is more to it than this but for now this will suffice. We share much about Jewish history, culture and religion in the lessons.
Simply stated Judaism is the religion established by the One True God at Mount Sinai. The Jews became a people through Abraham and received the true religion through Moses. We will have more to say on this later as well.
For our present purposes, people become Jewish in one of two ways. There are those who are born of Jewish mothers and there are those who convert into Judaism. Both types of people are fully Jewish (Leviticus 19:34; Romans 11). Of course not everyone born of a Jewish mother practices the religion of Judaism, however they are still fully Jewish due to their association with Abraham. Judaism is a religion, a people, an ethnic identity and more.
Jewish denominations are known as movements. The principle Jewish movements are as follows:
Orthodox Judaism: In Israel this is by far the largest Jewish movement. In other countries such as the USA it is not. Orthodox Judaism is the most Torah observant and Torah based of the movements. In simple terms Torah is the same thing as the Law of Moses. There will be more on this in the lessons.
Conservative Judaism: A mixture of traditional and modern ideas, leans towards tradition.
Reform Judaism: This more liberal movement is the largest in the USA. A mixture of traditional and modern ideas, leans towards modern ideas.
Reconstructionist Judaism: Does not practice Torah observance or most traditions and is essentially universalist minded.
Independent Judaism: This is a growing movement outside of Israel. It is shul (local temple) based and varies in its Torah observance etc.
Messianic Judaism: Arguably more closely aligned with Orthodox Judaism than the other movements. Unfortunately because we accept the reforms of Rebbe Y'shua none of the Jewish movements accept Messianic Judaism.Be aware: Not everyone using the term Messianic Judaism is practicing "the Way" as taught by Y'shua. Many are Evangelical Christians hoping to make Nicene Christianity appear biblical. These missionaries merely adopt Jewish customs and pepper their teachings with a few Hebrew words hoping to convert Jews to Christianity. This is a very common and serious misdirection that should be avoided at all costs (Genesis 12:1-3).
Notes for this study:
All Bible quotes are from the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)
Glossary and terms for this study (our compete glossary of terms):
Adonai: The LORD -- Lord of lords
Avraham: Also known as Abraham. Father of all Jewish People.B.C.E.: "Before our common era." Same as B.C.
Beth HaShem: House of GodC.E.: "Common era." Same as A.D.
HaShem: The KING/the Name -- King of kings
Jesus (Greek: Iesous/Iesus): "Beloved of Zeus." Rebbe Y'shua was renamed this by the Catholic Church as part of its "anti-judaizing" campaigns.
Jew: One whose mother is Jewish (one whose father is Jewish according to Karaite Judaism) or one who has converted into Judaism.
Judah: One of the 12 House of Israel.
Judaism: The religion and culture of the Jews, of the House of Judah; biblical religion.Messiah: English for Moshiach.
Nicene Creed: To read this unbiblical document Go here.
Rabbi: A teacher of the Written and Oral Torah; a leader of a Jewish congregation or other ministry.
Rebbe: Used in different ways, from the same root as rabbi: An especially honored rabbi, a teacher of rabbis, the spiritual leader of a Hasidic fellowship.
Shul: A Jewish meeting place, a congregation. Same as synagogue.
Yeshiva: school
Y'shua: the real name of "Jesus"
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