Last week we began to look at how restoring the Jewish framework for our faith can help us grow and develop as individuals and as the church. We looked at the need to embrace a proactive learning journey, and the communal nature of growing in our faith – a process rooted in relationship. This week we are continuing to explore the Jewish framework for discipleship, focusing on the wider implications: the way our faith should impact our entire way of life and those around us.

Discipleship is holistic not just ‘spiritual’

Over the centuries the church began to absorb a Greek, and even Gnostic, rather than Jewish mindset towards what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.

This meant a separation of the spiritual from things considered ‘worldly’. The mindset this leads to is that the natural world is in opposition to the spiritual world, even defiling, and we need to be liberated from it.

The Jewish mindset of Jesus and his followers – which informed their way of thinking, teaching and living – was, and still is, much more holistic.

Jewish prayers and festivals recognise the blessings of God that come to us through the natural world, acknowledging God as the source. There is a celebration of marriage and sexual union, of family, friendships, and the enjoyment of food and wine. Judaism is not an ascetic religion in that sense.

There is an acknowledgment, even an embracing, of the struggles and challenges of life, of the validity and importance of emotional engagement rather than detachment, and of the need to love God and one another with all aspects of our being.Study and artistic endeavour are seen as springing from the life of God inside us and the gifts he has bestowed.

The heart and intellect are equally celebrated rather than divided or set in opposition. Study and artistic endeavour are seen as springing from the life of God inside us and the gifts he has bestowed.

Above all, the purpose of all this is not to escape the confines of this world but to become a willing participant in bringing God’s kingdom to the earth, in the here and now. Hence, we become vessels for his presence and ambassadors for his purposes. As Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven”.

In Jewish thinking there is a phrase that has come to embody this process, known as tikkun olam. It broadly means repairing the world. God has invited his people to partner with him in this process, and the ultimate expression of this is to fully embrace his Messiah, Yeshua, or Jesus as most of us know him. Through repentance and salvation we can receive his kingdom on the inside of us, and see it operate through us.

The Jewish mindset familiar to Jesus and his followers and which informed their way of thinking, teaching and living, was and is much more holistic.

This means that God is interested in our everyday lives and our whole being – body, soul and spirit, including our emotions and our thinking – and discipleship is (thankfully) thoroughly holistic by nature. It cannot be restricted to the obviously ‘spiritual’ aspects of life.

Application

A rabbi’s teaching was about how to interpret and specifically apply or live out the commandments of God. This was called his ‘halakah’ or ‘walk’ – and taking on the yoke of a rabbi meant to sit under this. Jesus taught using this paradigm – e.g. the ‘Sermon on the Mount’ was Jesus’ teaching on how to apply the Torah to daily life, not a treatise on Christian religious morals. The rabbis taught that the Messiah would bring out the full meaning of the Torah, just as Jesus did.

The Jewish emphasis is not simply on belief but primarily on application to living. The emphasis is on wisdom, not knowledge for knowledge’s sake. The disciple or ‘talmid’ is learning not just beliefs or actions but correct skills of interpretation and ways of seeing, thinking, and understanding, in order to apply these to different situations. (It’s similar to the idea of ‘teach a man to fish’ rather than ‘give a man a fish’.) The Talmud (collected Jewish rabbinic oral teaching) commands rabbis to ‘raise up many disciples.’ This is a model you see with John, Paul, and Jesus (as well as in the Old Testament). Disciples make disciples.

Biblical literacy

Disciples were not spoon fed. They were expected to study for themselves, and to discuss and explore the Scriptures for themselves, alone and in groups.

Their job was not to rate the rabbi’s messages and decide which was best. It was to study and contemplate so they could own and internalise the scripture verses for themselves.

We can only really learn to love God fully and operate in faith if we learn to ‘rightly divide’ His Word for ourselves. We cannot leave it to the preacher on Sunday. It is our responsibility, as mature believers, to engage proactively.

This does not mean we must all become scholars, but God does call all of us to become students of his word, at whatever level we can be.

Faithfulness vs faith

If we wish to reach the world and be the light we are called to be, we must embrace a Jewish way of thinking. ‘Salvation through faith alone’ contains a vital, liberating truth that was much needed. However, taken out of context it plays into the spirit/body separation in a way that can make us of no earthly good!

A Jewish model places dynamic action at the heart of our faith, not as an optional extra.

We are called to be light and salt to the world, to serve our generation and specifically show the world what God’s love and mercy looks like through our actions. If we are too afraid of getting caught up in ‘works’, we can forget that Jesus said people will know us by our fruit. The early believers placed a high priority on serving those around them, as well as within their communities.

This means embracing the poor, unloved and overlooked in society, and being the arms and legs of Jesus to them. Indifference is not a good look for the church; and when it focuses on the salvation of souls but pays no attention to the needs of those suffering around it, it becomes a confusing witness.

St Francis said preach the Gospel and use words if necessary. A Jewish model situates dynamic action at the heart of our faith, not as an optional extra. The early church continued to serve and bless the poor, the widows and the orphans (in a society with no safety nets), both within and without the church community.

You could put it this way – we are not saved by good works but we are called to good works.

Community vs organisation

I don’t think we need more programmes or activities for the sake of it. Rather, as we shift towards a truer concept of discipleship we need to create better contexts for this to take place.

The emphasis in biblical Jewish thinking is on community, not just individual freedoms. Much of the Torah is about how individuals can live in such a way as to bless and enhance their communities.

Jesus said that by the way we love one another people will know we are from him. If we return to the Jewish model outlined above I believe it will help us to grow in what this means, the better to shine light into the world and offer it salt for its wounds.

I fully believe that God is at work, and if we let him, he will do a ‘new thing’ out of the current situation, one that really is an ‘old thing’. He has not forgotten us, nor has he forgotten the suffering world; he longs to birth a deeper revelation of himself in our hearts and to express this through us to a waiting world. The question is are we willing?

How do we embrace this? In my book, The Jewish Jesus, I outlined what I felt was the simplest route – REWIRE – Read Without Religion. Read the Bible for what it is, allowing the layers of our traditional thinking to be stripped away. I think this, rather than the romantic adoption of Jewish symbols and culture, or striving for some different identity, is the key.

A return to the Jewish model of discipleship and church means a return to the processes that God has told us will bring fulfilment to our lives and cause us to impact the world to maximum effect.

And thankfully, everything I am talking about is there plainly in the Bible, and will leap out at us, full of grace, if we allow it to. For the coming days I believe it is vital that we do. Next week, we will look more at the implications of all of this, and consider what God is saying prophetically to the church, especially in light of the current situation.

Shalom.

Notes

David HoffbrandDavid and his wife form part of the team responsible for the spiritual oversight of Citycoast Church, Brighton. In David’s weekly resource 52 Sabbaths he unwraps a different aspect of the Sabbath each week, and looks at how we can apply it to our lives. Anyone can sign up for free. His book The Jewish Jesus is available at www.thejewishjesusbook.com as well as most major booksellers.