Benyamin's Blog
Thanks to a congregant at the New Beginnings Grace Brethren Church in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, I found out that a pastor there mentioned “My Jesus Year” in a recent sermon. The entire sermon was more than an hour long (not even synagogues on the High Holidays have sermons that long). He talked about how churches in America are becoming less spiritual and too interested in the mass marketing commercialization of the church. This is the part of the speech where the pastor referenced me, saying I went looking for spirituality at churches and didn’t find Jesus ... because of this trend away from spirituality at churches. That’s not exactly true (I did find spirituality), so I kind of feel he was using my own religious sojourn for his own purposes. If they invite me, I’d be glad to speak at their church (as I’ve done at other churches) and explain what I really learned from hanging out at their houses of worship.
Below is a two-minute audio clip from the part of his sermon which mentions my book and my journey:
Below is a two-minute audio clip from the part of his sermon which mentions my book and my journey:
Click the ‘play’ button to listen
I used to think Jesus was indeed real and that he gave his life so that everyone could be a Jew.
Oh boy did I ever get that wrong!
Why must we have religion, and all it’s terrible pagan dogma. When G-d is supreme over all; and He has no religion. We made god out of tradition, and dogma. It is nothing more than pagan idolatry, when we have believers in almost all faiths, who are more than willing to kill and destroy any other kind of belief, or religion, that they have judged to be offensive.. What ever happened to the wonderful simplicity of Abraham’s walk with G-d? Think about it; no dogma, no man made books; just you and your G-d, and the only laws that you need to fallow is written on your heart. G-d loves us all, let’s get back to basics, and learn to love each other.
Benyamin,
My sermon is the one you have mentioned here and I would like to clear something up for you, spirituality and Jesus are not the same thing, at all. There are all kinds of religions and cults that have some type of spirituality, but there is only one God - Jesus Christ. What was so troubling to me in your book was not what you said about the church, but what it revealed. Your story about the weight of the Law of God is exactly what the Bible says is supposed to happen to someone under the Law. The Law’s purpose is to drive us to Christ, so that we may find Him and eternal life. The Law did its work in your life, you went looking for answers in a Christian church, but you did not find Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, who is actually alive today, you found spirituality. The New Testament, Jesus Christ, is the fulfillment of the Law and the Old Testament prophets. True Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism. I greatly appreciate your honesty in your book and the fact you were not out to bash Christians; I am not out to bash Jews. We love Israel, we support Israel at New Beginnings. However, in reference to the comment by Walter, all roads do not lead to God. All religions are not the same. There is one God, Deuteronomy 6:4-5; He is holy and righteous and jealous (Joshua 24:19); He will not allow us to come to Him on our own terms, He is God, we are not; He has given one way to meet Him because none of us can keep the whole Law and, as Walter said, the Law written on our hearts, which is the 10 commandments. None of us can even keep that. Who of us has never lied? or stolen? or lusted in our hearts, which is adultery? Or hated someone, which is murder? Or who of us has always kept God first in thought, word and deed? No one. As King David said, “There is none righteous, not even one, there is no one who does good, not even one. We all need a Savior! Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Me.” (John 14:6) “He who has the Son has life, he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.” (1John5:12) Jesus cannot just be a good teacher or a good prophet, He said He was God; He was either a liar, a lunatic, or LORD, I AM, as He said. I would love to sit and talk with you sometime. And, in regard to the length of my sermon, if you remember, Ezra had all of Israel stand, including children, while he read the whole Torah, at least the people who heard my sermon could sit down. I would love to hear back from you.
Joe, I wonder if you think that all Jews, not just Benjamin, are “burdened by the weight of the law.” Did Jesus ever contradict King David, who wrote in Psalm 19:
7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
reviving the soul.
The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the LORD are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is pure,
enduring forever.
The ordinances of the LORD are sure
and altogether righteous.
10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the comb.
Very interesting way to market on facebook. I also found a way to automate several very powerful methods of getting users. You can harvest ID by groups or pages or wall posts with this software. Then once you have the IDs you can do a friend blast to your profile or sudo profile. This by passes the captcha codes too. There is also a cool chat program that you can setup scripts and keyword to work with. This program, when I use it I can see a spike in my site traffic. It is awesome...