'The rich young ruler ' confusion .

7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Nothing you do will summon God the Spirit, he comes to whom he wills, when he wills regardless of action or deed.

There is not any reference to the Sainai Covenant or Moses Covenant to be an everlasting covenant. The Abrahamic covenant was called and an everlasting covenant. That fact that the Sainai covenant was never called an everlasting covenant is interesting and noticeable.

I always thought that meant that as we cannot see the person get born again we can tell by the changes made in the heart. Like when the wind blows you see it in the movement of the trees.

During the OT, as long as a Jew remain in Israel throughout his entire life, he will be part of the covenant God made with Israel in Exodus 24.

At his death, he will be placed in Abraham's bosom or Paradise.

When Jesus returns again for Israel, his sins will be forgiven corporately, as part of Israel.

The nation would be forgiven of all their sins when the New Covenant begins with them (Hebrews 8:8-12, Acts 3:19-21, Romans 11:26-27).

So you are correct, individual forgiveness of sins was not part of the Old Covenant of Law. The blood of bulls and goats only covered their sins.

The wind analogy is the answer to Nicodemus’ question of how one can be born again.

3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.

8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

9 Nicodemus answered and said unto him, How can these things be?

10 Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?

Also worth noting in verse 10 Jesus makes clear that Nicodemus should know one must be born of Spirit to enter the kingdom, indicating we can find similar speech in the Old Testament.

See Ezekiel 11, Ezekiel 36, Ezekiel 37...

The new birth is a work of God, by his choice for his glory not a decision or deed of man. To claim one can choose to be born again is to claim the ability to summon God the Spirit and command him to dwell within. One cannot command the Spirit anymore than he can command the wind. The same is true of ones earthly birth, one cannot decide or contribute to his conception or birth.

Man plays no role in either birth, it is the work of God.

I'll put that one on the shelf labeled possible meanings of the wind bloweth where it listeth and think about it with the others on that shelf.

There seems to be a HUGE question about the truth of the scripture of the old testament. Christ made changes when His forgiveness was no longer a shadow but a fulfillment. You are saying that we must be told what is truth in the old testament scripture and what isn't truth. If that is so, the whole entire kingdom of the Lord as the Lord gives us scripture is in question.

The new sect of the Messianic Church has been lambasted for believing that every verse of both the new and old testament is truth.

Only in your mind. All Bible-believing Christians accept the OT as Scripture -- the very Word of God. The liberals attack it, but they should simply be ignored.

The book of Isaiah tells us that God hated the blood of bulls and goats. It was the blood given on the altar, the shadow of Christ, that was used for the forgiveness of sin.

I am not sure what you are trying to say. The OT is the Word of God. Anyone who reads only the NT would eventually fall in love with the OT and understand that the NT teaches that the OT is the Word of God so they would not ignore the OT for very long.

I don't know what particular messianic church you are talking about and what they are doing there so I can't really comment on your particular scenario.

Is it a Jewish Messianic church where the people are Jewish by race and religion and then they became born again Christians and now they do the same things they used to do but talk about how Jesus is the Passover lamb. Things like that? If they are teaching and preaching Jesus and using all their Jewish customs to explain how Jesus is the savior etc. I think that is awesome.

What I don't understand is gentiles who are not Jewish adapting Jewish customs and trying to use those to teach Jesus when the scriptures do a better job than these customs can do at teaching Jesus. Trying to understand how Jesus is seen in many Jewish customs is subjective interpretations and can get into questionable concepts real quick. Conjecture, speculation and a whole sea of invented ideas that are not in the scriptures at all, neither OT or NT. Who said that is what that custom means? Some Rabbi from 600 AD? Who cares. They were not known for good hermeneutics. Many of the ancient Jewish methods of interpretation were allegorical and very strange like counting the number of letters and words and inventing meanings that have nothing to do with the common sense of the text itself. You would not want to follow all these Jewish customs to try to gain meaning.

Thinking that the dietary laws have to do with nutrition is a mistake. The meaning of the dietary laws were for separation and holiness, or clean and unclean in the context of what was acceptable for service to God in the temple worship not clean and unclean as in nutritionaly bad or good.

Sure the OT is the word of God and sure it should be studied for daily application but you need the Holy Spirit to teach the eternal moral principles. For example keeping the sabbath is done by resting in the finished work of salvation in Jesus Christ not by how you use your time on Saturday.

If you think that wearing a certain garment can enhance your relationship with Jesus I would question that approach to how one is seeking revelation through observing ancient Jewish Custom.

And of course if one thinks that observing a Jewish Custom they are obeying the Law of Moses such as observing a certain feast day, and that they are in sin if they don't observe that feast day and they are a Gentile, then I would say they have fallen into the deception of trying to gain rightstanding with God through observing Mosaic ordinances. This is a sin because they are in the flesh using legalism to give them a feeling of earning righteousness. Something they can boast about. It is especially heinous if they find that they have been indeed boasting about it to make people think they are elite holy observers of Moses etc.

I was quoting Hebrews 10:4 there.

No..

Yes one must be willing to give up a life of seeking pleasures from the lusts of the flesh to Follow Jesus as far as a decision goes. There is at least the decision "I give up all my sins to follow you" in their decision to Believe or it is not believing.

A born again believer is dead to sin and alive in Christ. Sanctification is the life long process of letting the old dead man go and growing in the new man created in Christ.

For the cause of Christ
Roger

YAY we agree.

I for one spent many years in the new testament only, I was taught that the old testament God was a tough, unforgiving God, with much war and even the Psalms did not teach to love your enemies. When I studied the old testament, using a commentary by a man deep in all scripture, it was like "Oh, THAT'S how the world works". It gave new depths to the new testament, never a disagreement.

I have been told that there are churches calling themselves Messianic that do not listen to scripture telling us about the old testament commands that are obsolete, but I haven't found one. However, because they believe all the old testament is scripture, they feel that we have gone overboard in our labeling of these obsolete commands. This brings on false gossip against this denomination, not a study that agrees or disagrees with them. If they disagree with whether these commands are part of the obsolete ones, they condemn everything of that sect, with messages against them that borders on hate messages. They will walk side by side. Baptist, Methodist, and even Lutherans but attack this sect.

I think that all scripture in regard to what God instructs us to do about the Sabbath would make your statement "not by how you use your time on Saturday" false. When scripture tells us to rest, it has to do with both physical and spiritual rest. Scripture is all from a God who is spirit. That does not mean that God has nothing to do with our physical life, as your statement would make as truth. Scripture tells us not only to rest in His forgiveness, but to rest from our labors. Scripture is truth.

If you tell anyone they are sinning for how they spend their time on Saturday you are sinning. Stop it today and ask God to forgive you. If your own conscience requires you to observe it a certain way then be true to your conscience but let everyone else answer to God for themselves and don't pass judgment on them.

Why ever would to change this conversation about finding the will of the Lord in regard to the Sabbath into a conversation about sinning? Are you saying the Lord considers how you understand His words about the Sabbath a matter of sinning or not sinning? Interesting concept.

Paul the missionary
Plus he MADE tents...he was a tentmaker.

Was Paul a missionary?