Hello my adorable Thinkers!
A quick disclaimer: Please keep in mind that these are my opinions from what I see in Scripture and not what I think everyone should do. If God has led you in a different direction or to a different conclusion, that is between you and Him.
I am sure some of you have noticed that I do not cite the New Testament very often when I am defending or discussing a topic. I want to clarify that I do believe that the New Testament is scripture, and do my best to defend every part of it. But here is why I try not to reference it unless I am defending it.
The Old Testament, most specifically the Torah (first 5 books) was given to mankind in a spectacular display of God’s power and awesomeness. There is also records that have been discovered from over a thousand years ago that are the same as the Torah’s we have today. This proves that both God found the Torah extremely important and made a big deal about giving it to us, and that it has not been corrupted at least in the last two thousand years. So I know that the Torah would be the best source for any concept or knowledge that I seek. Unfortunately the Torah tells us how to live but does not always have much information on some topics that I want to know about.
Then we evaluate the rest of the Old Testament and again we have records of the manuscripts that are very old. One example is the book of Isaiah which has a manuscript that was found with the Dead Sea Scrolls and dates back to at least 100 BC. This scroll is identical to the current book of Isaiah we have (in Hebrew). This is proof that the Old Testament is also a reliable resource.
Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the New Testament. The New Testament has manuscripts that contain portions that are not in others. Translators have added sometimes whole sentences for “clarification”. But there has been a lot of variance in what the Christian churches believe and different groups have interpreted the same scriptures different ways and gone so far as to add their own name to the Bible. (Like James) They have also taken verses out of context, and used the New Testament to say that we should not listen to the Old Testament anymore.
When that is the case I have to tread very lightly and question everything that it says. I do believe that the New Testament is scripture on one condition. If it agrees with the Old Testament. That way there are checks and balances so we can keep what is supposed to be there, the way it is supposed to be there. But if it truly disagrees with Torah then I cannot believe it. I believe that every part of the New Testament can be defended with Torah but not in the way that it is conventionally interpreted.
I believe that Yeshua (or Jesus in Greek) came to establish the law not abolish it as he said in Matthew 5:17. I believe this means that when he died, the Torah still stood as law. If you want to know what I believe the purpose of him dying was, here is a link to the post I made about that. I believe the vision Peter got on the roof top in Acts 10 was not telling us we can now disregard Leviticus 11 and eat all creatures. God was telling Peter the message that Peter acted upon, Gentiles can have Torah and the Messiah. I believe that all of Paul’s writings are hard to understand as Peter said in 2 Peter 3:16 but Paul is arguing for Torah not against it. There are many more examples that I could give.
There are books and aspects of the New Testament that I have not defended yet. I don’t have all the answers. I’ll say it again for those in the back, I do not have all the answers. I am just a girl who loves to research and has a passion for defending scripture with scripture. If you have questions or want to pick my brain, I am happy to answer. But the answer is likely to be, “I don’t know, let me look into that.” And that is okay because no one in all of history had all the answers. Even Yeshua himself went to ask God to take the cup of suffering from him in Mark 14.
When I am doing my research, since I believe that the New Testament is only scripture if it agrees with the Old Testament, I prefer to use source material. Just like if I were writing about oil field workers. I should go talk to an oil field worker not a friend of an oil field worker. I would probably get a lot of facts correct talking to the friend, but the friend doesn’t have all the facts. The friend is only right if the oil field worker agrees, so why not go to the source?
Maybe some day in the future I will write some of my defenses for different parts of the New Testament. For now I hope all of you who were curious on why I don’t quote the New Testament have a satisfying answer.
Now please understand that these are my opinions and I am entitled to them. If you disagree, that is okay, as long as God brought you to that answer. If my words make you question what you thought you believed, seek God and the scriptures.
Until next time my adorable Thinkers! ~The Pondering Panda
Panda's Ponderings 