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My Quest to Help Americans Rediscover the Bible
The Daily Signal ^ | January 09, 2018 | Dennis Prager

Posted on 01/11/2018 12:53:40 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

I won’t make any assumptions about how many readers noticed I took a three-month break from column writing.

Nevertheless, I want to explain why.

I needed the time to finish the first volume of the biggest project of my life as a writer, a commentary on the first five books of the Bible, or what are called the Torah in Hebrew.

The commentary is addressed to people of every faith and, especially, to people of no faith.

I have believed all my life that the primary crisis in America and the West is the abandonment of Judeo-Christian values, or, one might say, the dismissal of the Bible.

Virtually everyone on the left thinks America would be better off as a secular nation. And virtually all conservative intellectuals don’t think it matters. How many intellectuals study the Bible and teach it to their children?

And yet, from the time long before the United States became a country until well into the 1950s, the Bible was not only the most widely read book in America—it was the primary vehicle by which each generation passed on morality and wisdom to the next generation.

Since that time, we have gone from a Bible-based society to a Bible-ignorant one—from the Bible being the Greatest Book to the Bible being an irrelevant book.

Ask your college-age child, niece, nephew, or grandchild to identify Cain and Abel, the Tower of Babel, or the ten plagues. Get ready for some blank stares.

I recently asked some college graduates (none of whom were Jewish) to name the four Gospels. None could.

But what we have today is worse than ignorance of the Bible. It is contempt for it. . .

(Excerpt) Read more at dailysignal.com ...


TOPICS: General Discusssion; Judaism; Moral Issues; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: bible; commandments; god; godless; morality; parents; torah; westernculture
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To: WatchungEagle

It is not one or the other but Both.

Luk 24:27 Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

You want to know more about Jesus, read the OT.............


21 posted on 01/11/2018 7:34:27 PM PST by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
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To: ealgeone
I challenge you to define belief using Scripture alone. No dictionary or the likes, just the Word of God.

“For everyone who is doing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But the one doing the truth comes to the light, so that his works are clearly seen, that they have been wrought in Elohim.” [John 3:20-21] Therefore...

“He who believes(G4100) in the Son possesses everlasting life, but he who does not obey(G544) the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of Elohim remains on him.”

Now who is the life? John 14:6 ... Jesus the Christ. Those who do not obey do not receive the reward of being gathered to see & be with Christ when He returns.

“And see, I am coming speedily, and My reward is with Me, to give to each according to his work. ... Blessed are those doing His commands, so that the authority shall be theirs unto the tree of life, and to enter through the gates into the city." [Rev 12 & 14]

“But outside are the dogs and those who enchant with drugs, and those who whore, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and all who love and practice falsehood." [Rev 22:15]

Because it is written... “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Master, Master,’ shall enter into the reign of the heavens, but he who is doing the desire of My Father in the heavens. Many shall say to Me in that day, ‘Master, Master, have we not prophesied in Your Name, and cast out demons in Your Name, and done many mighty works in Your Name?’ And then I shall declare to them, ‘I never knew you, depart from Me, you who work lawlessness!’ [Mt 7:21-23]

Jesus isn't speaking of breaking the laws of men, He is speaking of the Law (Torah) of His Father that He came to restore. So tell me, do you believe homosexuality is a sin and if so, what is your authority for that conclusion you reached?

22 posted on 01/11/2018 7:48:37 PM PST by patlin ("Knowledgee chosen to participate inthat is - 2nd to none but God" ConstitutionallySpeaking 2011)
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To: Ezekiel
Zohar mumbo jumbo, hidden shmidden... He tells us that He will give us wisdom and understanding if we obey through faith in Messiah.

Ashkenaz... don't get me started on that one because, as the example you provided concerning stealing bread is spelled out clearly in the Bible without the aid of some man made religious ‘din shmin’ that is not of God, but of men who say that God is pleased that He was defeated by these peddlers of falsehood.

Have you NOT read the Bible where He says His Torah is spiritual. Even Paul taught that the Torah is spiritual? God does not operate through flesh, He is spirit and therefore, He operates through spirit.

Torah of the world to come is something that will be taught in the world to come? Tree of souls? .... this is kabbalistic clap trap invented & practiced by men who do not believe in a divine Messiah, but rather, their messiah will be a man of the flesh who will rule over the world.

God doesn't need the help of men to teach His children and when He completes His promise in Jeremiah 31:31-34, everything you just wrote will be proven to be nothing but vanity in which there is no profit.

23 posted on 01/11/2018 8:16:38 PM PST by patlin ("Knowledgee chosen to participate inthat is - 2nd to none but God" ConstitutionallySpeaking 2011)
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To: patlin

Glad I could help set the concept of love in motion for you.


24 posted on 01/11/2018 8:23:01 PM PST by Ezekiel (All who mourn(ed!) the destruction of America merit the celebration of her rebirth.)
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To: Ezekiel
I have read the Talmud & Zohar and there is no love in those volumes of books of the laws & writings of men concerning loving anyone other than themselves & the seed of their flesh. I have read their doctrines in those books concerning those who confess that Jesus (Yeshua) is the Messiah and what will be done to those who are caught praying to the Father in His Name Jesus (Yeshua) when they are in authority.

So instead of bringing to the table that which is not of God, why not just stick to His written word of truth that says we have no need for man to teach us anything of God? Because their volumes of religious books say that it is better to listen to them rather than Moses for their sages are much wiser than Moses. This is exactly why Jesus (Yeshua) said...

Mat 11:25 At that time יהושע responding, said, “I thank You, Father, Master of the heavens and earth, because You have hidden these matters from cunning and taught ones and have revealed them to babes.

The fact is, there is no love in any religious commands of men because all religious commands of men presume that the men who enact & enforce those religious laws of men have some type of authority over every aspect of another persons life, thereby placing themselves as having a higher authority than God, and thus, becoming gods unto themselves. So why don't we just stick to true love....

By this we know that we love the children of Elohim, when we love Elohim and guard His commands. For this is the love for Elohim, that we guard His commands, and His commands are not burdensome. [1John 5:2-3, See Deut 30:11-20, Rm 10:5-12]

Replied in love, Shalom

25 posted on 01/11/2018 8:46:09 PM PST by patlin ("Knowledgee chosen to participate inthat is - 2nd to none but God" ConstitutionallySpeaking 2011)
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To: patlin
The Torah of the Messiah is a higher Law that operates well above the fray.
26 posted on 01/11/2018 8:52:22 PM PST by Ezekiel (All who mourn(ed!) the destruction of America merit the celebration of her rebirth.)
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To: huldah1776

I don’t think it applies to salvation at all.

Knowing the OT helps the NT be richer and fuller, but you don’t NEED to know it to understand the NT.


27 posted on 01/12/2018 3:49:38 AM PST by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..)
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To: WatchungEagle; patlin

Jesus came to fulfill the Law, not to abolish it.

I wouldn’t say that the NT replaces the OT. There is too much of value in the OT and it’s not even a matter of it *replacing* the OT. It’s a different way of God dealing with sin, but God has not changed nor have His standards for living.


28 posted on 01/12/2018 3:54:37 AM PST by metmom ( ...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith..)
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To: huldah1776
"One the replies at the source bothered me. They wrote that to understand the New Testament you needed to know the Old Testament.Does that apply to salvation?"

NO but it certainly applies to sanctification.

29 posted on 01/12/2018 5:44:53 AM PST by circlecity
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To: circlecity

So the NT does not teach us holy living as Jesus lived in completion? Is this not the age of the Holy Spirit in every Christian? I can eat meat sacrificed to idols (as long as it isn’t human) and others shouldn’t. Is that the basis of the sanctification discussion?


30 posted on 01/12/2018 6:35:44 AM PST by huldah1776 ( Vote Pro-life! Allow God to bless America before He avenges the death of the innocent.)
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To: huldah1776

Sanctification is not only behavior but knowing God as well as we can - the goal of every Christian should be to know God as intimately as possible. The only things we can know about God is what he chooses to reveal. He reveals himself through his revelation. There is general revelation, what he reveals of himself through his creation and special revelation, what is revealed in scripture. I choose to read all of his revelation to know him as best I can. The bible is one complete work. You wouldn’t read half of any other book and claim to understand what the author was saying completely, why would anyone do any less with the bible? Come on, this is theology proper 101.


31 posted on 01/12/2018 6:45:48 AM PST by circlecity
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To: Ezekiel

Try this. The Torah of Moshiach will show what chassidut shows us now. How every word of Torah screams, “Ein od milvado!” (There is nothing other than Him!)

Not only that, it reveals how the stories of old are not just antiquity, rather alive and binding upon us every second of every day to serve our Creator. (Hint—and we LOVE it!)

Check out this class Ezekiel. I was asked in my class “But isn’t the G-d of the Old Testament the G-d of judgement??” Negative Ghost Rider— He’s everything.

Hear the love:

https://www.theyeshiva.net/jewish/2646

If any words aren’t translated let me know. Sometimes I don’t make note when he speaks Yeshivish (mix of Hebrew, Yiddish, and poor English)


32 posted on 01/12/2018 7:10:29 AM PST by Phinneous (Moshiach Now!)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

Look at how uncomfortable in their own skin many of the paleos, indentations, nationalists are having to share the Bible and the roots of their own tradition with “the Jew”. Really is a form of ancestor worship.

The very thought that moral authority perhaps does not stem from their own “blood and soil” must be anathema to them.

At least the neo-pagan ones who reject all Abrahamic religions as alien and having been imposed by “the outsider” (we know who) are more self-consistent.


33 posted on 01/12/2018 7:13:13 AM PST by JadeEmperor
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To: JadeEmperor; WatchungEagle
Look at how uncomfortable in their own skin many of the paleos, indentations, nationalists are having to share the Bible and the roots of their own tradition with “the Jew”. Really is a form of ancestor worship.

The very thought that moral authority perhaps does not stem from their own “blood and soil” must be anathema to them.

At least the neo-pagan ones who reject all Abrahamic religions as alien and having been imposed by “the outsider” (we know who) are more self-consistent.

Of course I don't know for sure, but I highly doubt that Watchung Eagle (courtesy ping) is a chrstian of any kind. He's much more likely to be in the Revilo P. Oliver/Ben Klassen/Sam Francis/Willis Carto/Francis Parker Yockey school of thought. They don't really have any use for chrstianity themselves, but they respect their "racial brothers and sisters" who have adopted it and made it their own (this is the same attitude atheist Communist Blacks have to Fundamentalist chrstian Blacks, btw).

Take Willis Carto. He always had trouble with Bible-thumpers and, though he didn't share their worldview, tried to crawl inside it to tell them why they should be anti-Jewish. One editorial in his American M*rc*y tried to explain that while Judaism may have been the One True Religion at one time, at a certain time this ceased and it suddenly morphed from the worship of G-d into the worship of "satan" (you know, like 1950s America suddenly morphed from a better, more wholesome time into some kind of Nazi dictatorship). Of course poor dear Willis blew it all away when he wrote another editorial snarking about how the Jews were actually kicked out of Egypt because they had leprosy and then wrote a fictionalized account in which they not only wanted out but the Red Sea actually parted for them! (One of Willis' readers actually had to respond that all true chrstians have to believe that story. It would be interesting the know the thoughts running through his head as he read it.)

But our boy Achtung Baby takes the cake. He actually so much as says that the older, more established part of the bible is somehow to the left of the "new testament." This is inherently impossible, as the whole point of leftism is the overthrow of the old and established by the new and radical (except for when it comes to "indigenous pipples," where Charles Darwin suddenly disappears). How can any proud racialist claim that the "new testament" has more nationalism in it than the TaNa"KH? The Hebrew Bible is all about blood and soil; the "new testament" is universalist, with its insistence that "there is neither male nor female, Jew nor Greek" (Achtung has probably never read either one). Even the so-called "identity" chrstians, who insist that chrstianity is the unique religion of the white race, have to claim to be the "true Israelites" of the "old testament" in order to make such a claim. Even they recognize that there is precious little nationalism or racialism of any kind in the "new testament." And honestly, which is more "right wing"--the Sermon on the Mount, or the Book of Joshua?

The only way I can find any "inherent" racialism or nationalism in chrstianity is from the concept of incarnationism. If G-d became a man (chas vechalilah!), then what kind of man did He allegedly become? He became whatever kind "you" are. To Armenians, chrstianity is the uniquely Armenian religion, the new chosen people (the church is the nation and the nation is the church). But there are no Armenians in the "new testament." The "new testament" says not one word about Armenia. So the Armenians have to make up a post-"new testament" story about J*sus descending from heaven in the fourth chrstian century and hitting the ground with a hammer, showing where the mother Armenian church was to be built and "choosing" Armenia has his speical, select, holy nation.

The Ethiopians take the opposite route. Like the white "Identity" people (talk about irony!), their "chosenness" doesn't come from the "new testament" but from the "old." They claim their ruling house is Davidic, tracing its ancestry back to Solomon and Sheba.

Well, these are extreme examples, but every traditionally chrstian country has this holy nationalist impulse which does not and cannot come from the universalist "new testament." Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia, England, and even Protestant America (chosen by G-d as the place where the restored one true religion could be practiced) all have this impulse. Yet nowhere in the "new testament" is there the slightest intimation of such ideas. (Certain right wing Catholics seem to think that the "new testament," or at least immemorial apostolic tradition, contains all the instructions for the European High Middle Ages, including Pope and Emperor, knighthood, chivalry, and everything else.)

But it is what it is. The thing is, while the "old testament" may have all the nationalism and blood-and-soil rootedness that anti-Semites envy and desire for themselves, outside of the Chosen People the rest of the human race remains more or less in the same boat. This is what really rankles them. They think it hypocritical for Jews to claim to be "chosen" while everyone else is stuck with "racial equality," but that's simply the nature of a single chosen people called out from everyone else. These "palaeos" aren't very theological; they're merely identitarian, and they want every people to be "chosen," with its very own "gxd," "true religion," and "holy land." And this the "old testament" most certainly denies. This is the only cause I can find for "nationalist" hatred of the world's oldest nationalism. But to claim to find an authorization for non-Jewish nationalisms or "blood and soil" in the "new testament" (where it plainly doesn't exist) is an act of desperation.

They're obviously pretty desperate.

34 posted on 01/12/2018 7:51:58 AM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Vegam Yehudah tillachem biYrushalayim . . . .)
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To: patlin

You are correct as to who are the covenant people of God. I appreciate your thoroughness and fidelity.

Paul mentions nothing of the word of God being written on our hearts and in our minds. We, as believers, are one with Christ in spirit, we are His body. We are beyond and higher in position to God than Israel has been or will be in the future. Our relationship to God is spiritual, not on earth, it is in the celestial realm, where He resides with His Beloved Son.

The law of God pertains to the earth. Perfect liberty is ours in Christ, and the law has no bearing on our relationship to God the Father. We are justified, glorified, and are seated among the celestial hosts, even now. There is no need for the law to be written on our hearts.

For those who dwell upon the earth during the Millennial age, such a quickening as will abide through supernatural writing of God upon the heart and mind of Israel, will be needed in that environment on earth. Sin will still be present, and death will not be done away with during that thousand year period.


35 posted on 01/12/2018 9:17:27 AM PST by 5cents (fivesense)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

You are self hating freak. A textbook example of the sickness that has infected elderly American conservatives and turned them into neocon globalist traitors.


36 posted on 01/12/2018 9:29:27 AM PST by WatchungEagle
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To: ealgeone

2Ti 3:16 All scripture is inspired by God, and is beneficial for teaching, for exposure, for correction, for discipline in righteousness.

Not all was written TO us. The Scrolls of the various New Testament writers were sent to particular people. It is imperative to know and understand this truth or confusion and error will persist in one’s beliefs.

Only Paul was commissioned for the Gentiles, not the other apostles. They failed and God locked them all up in stubbornness til the era of the Gentiles is filled up.

2Ti 2:15 Endeavor to present yourself to God qualified, an unashamed worker, correctly cutting the word of truth.
2Ti 2:16 Yet from profane prattlings stand aloof, for they will be progressing onto more irreverence.

It is unfortunate that prattling is all that some who frequent here can muster. Honesty and sincerity are at a discount. We all get what we deserve according to our faithfulness. It is in service to God that worth is determined, ego plays no role whatsoever.


37 posted on 01/12/2018 9:34:40 AM PST by 5cents (fivesense)
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To: WatchungEagle
You are self hating freak. A textbook example of the sickness that has infected elderly American conservatives and turned them into neocon globalist traitors.

And you're an atheist, essentially no different than Karl Marx.

38 posted on 01/12/2018 9:38:51 AM PST by Zionist Conspirator (Vegam Yehudah tillachem biYrushalayim . . . .)
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To: Phinneous
Thank you so much. That was beautiful, timely, relevant, and inspiring on multiple levels in ways you wouldn't know. It's yet another example [of many] of how information is somehow sorted from above, then brought to me on the proverbial silver platter.

No issues with the 'Yeshivish', as I have looked up unfamiliar terms over time as I have come across them. The new one today is yesurim. It is rather paradoxical in its own right that I had never encountered yesurim until today. There you go, it all makes sense in its proper time.

As far as not being subject to the slavery mindset, it's why I have come to post what I see no matter how bizarre and stupid it appears. Generally it's ignored anyway. I'm not arguing dogma or forcing anybody to like my posts or care.

There is so much detail - patterns and evidence of God's complete interconnection with man everywhere and with everything that exists. That's how much love (and joy) is out there just waiting to be realized and disseminated. I've seen the rectification in action, up close and personal, face to face. There is no going back.

It's like when God told Samuel [when Samuel was working his way through the line-up of Jesse's sons] that man judges by how things appear to him, whereas the Lord looks upon the heart.

These days, who's even looking for a plain man caring for literal sheep (and a whole lot more). What would he know? Yesurim, for starters.

39 posted on 01/12/2018 10:10:19 AM PST by Ezekiel (All who mourn(ed!) the destruction of America merit the celebration of her rebirth.)
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To: Ezekiel
The Torah of Messiah IS the Torah of Moses & it operates in the here & now. Shalom
40 posted on 01/17/2018 7:23:47 AM PST by patlin ("Knowledgee chosen to participate inthat is - 2nd to none but God" ConstitutionallySpeaking 2011)
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