The Hebrew roots movement is proving to be a horrible ruin. But why?
Depending on when we calculate the beginning of the movement, if we go back to Jews for Jesus, or simply when we born gentiles began returning to our Hebraic heritage, either way we have at least two generations worth of invested in this movement. The results are in and it is disastrous. But why? Is it because Christianity was correct all along? Is it rather that Judaism was right? Or was it supposed to be that Jews follow Judaism and everyone else follows Christianity?… Or was it something else?
Why is this tradition so broken? And it is beyond doubt broken. Many may disagree. But the results speak for themselves. The fact that the vast majority of people who participate in this movement have fled the movement demonstrates that something is drastically erroneous. It is either our beliefs or our practices.…
…Or maybe it is our perception.
Our perception about our beliefs and our perception about our practices. Perhaps it is the way we see our own role in The Way.
The Torah is like Water. And we all agree on this. It is refreshing, and it is life-giving. And for those who follow The Way, there is no debate about this… but there tends to be a dichotomous view of ourselves as either being a brick, or a sponge. We either reject the water poured upon us or we absorb it all without question.
We see people who reject the Hebrew roots movement as being those who reject the Torah. We view them as being bricks that the water pours upon and runs off, absorbing nothing. But all too often what was poured upon them, was not the Torah itself but that Water of Life mixed with the filth of our own private doctrines. Meaning that what they were rejecting was our presentation or our lack of education or our private indoctrination.
We see ourselves as being meant to be sponges, soaking up all the Water, and thinking it Torah and no more. But all too often that water of life is mixed with our own filthy doctrine or our own filthy discipline. Junk science, faulty scholarship. pseudo-intellectualism, masquerading as only the Torah. If we behave like sponges, when this water falls upon us, we will soak it all up, garbage at all.
And the reason many… And in enough time, most people are fleeing the movement is because of this behavior. We were taught to absorb everything early on, and because we were parched with thirst and deprived for so long from the Water of Life, we soaked up all the water that we were given… Yet with enough time we were able to see how much of that water was, and still is infected with filth from outside.
Our movement is failing, because while it is understandable for new believers to behave this way as sponges, since we were trained to behave that way in the church and the synagogue, it is yet inexcusable for our teachers to act in like manner. Though they predominantly do just so. They sponged up the filthy water of their so-called teachers, and they poured out that dirty water upon those they taught too.
Given enough time, when the students become the teachers most begin to recognize, their water is not fresh, clean, pure. And the result is almost always to flee. Fleeing back to the church or the synagogue. Fleeing to atheism. Or fleeing to other religions entirely.
So what is the solution? We can’t be sponges anymore and being bricks, rejecting all water as dirty, is not the answer either. Rather, we are meant to be not sponges or bricks but colanders. We were made to be strainers. We are intended to be water purifiers. Our purpose in this world is to repair the world. Not to fix everything everywhere always. No. But to fix ourselves and to fix everything that comes our way before we then pass it on to others.
Our purpose, especially in the messianic movement, is to be water purifiers. We cannot make pure water purer. But we can purify what is. We can filter out bias and lies. We can strain out doctrine and traditions of men… Not just church traditions, or rabbinic traditions that run contrary to Torah. But we can and must strain out messy-anic traditions that are made by us and are making it repugnant to receive the Torah from us. We can filter out those extra elements that will make someone later reject the life-giving water that they have received at the first.
How we fix the movement is by fixing how we see ourselves. We are not meant to be bricks that cannot absorb any water poured upon them. And we are not meant to be sponges that some up all the water poured upon them along with all that the water has been contaminated with.
Our reason for being in The Way is to purify the Water that was given to us, so that all we have to offer to those who come after is clean, clear fresh and refreshing life-giving Water from Above to below with no additives, sweeteners, flavors, or colors, and most certainly with no dirt, rocks, refuse or microbes, mixed in.
Question Everything
