The British Messianic Jewish Alliance

Whom do we follow: the Rabbis or the Scriptures? 

Summer 2001 - Issue 212

Being Jewish is a precious thing to most Jewish followers of Yeshua, both to those coming from an orthodox or assimilated background (the latter being my own experience). Being a young Jewish believer in Yeshua, the issue of worshipping the Lord and living for Him while cultivating my Jewishness at the same time, has been on my mind since soon after becoming a Christian. Various approaches are adopted in the world-wide Jewish-Christian spectrum regarding this issue.

Often, the Messianic Movement puts great emphasis on keeping the Mosaic law (or at least of a part of it), strongly advocates following Rabbinical tradition (or at least certain elements of it) and Jewish believers are often encouraged to separate from the rest of the Messiah’s body.

This present article tries to explain how non-Scriptural and dangerous it is to credit rabbinical tradition and teaching with regulative authority. My line of thought rests on two foundational truths:

1) All the information we need to worship God in spirit and truth and to live life for His glory is contained within the Holy Scriptures, both Tanach and Brit HaHadashah;

2) Anything pertaining to our worship of God and our life, which is either not governed by or is against the principles laid out in the Scriptures, is at best spurious and at worst sinful and displeasing to the Almighty.

The question I ask is this: Why should we pay homage to rabbinical teaching and incorporate elements of it into our life and worship?

Two main arguments often presented are the following:

·         In the light of Matthew 23:1-3 we are under authority of the rabbis.

·         The rabbis greatly contributed to the national survival of Jewish people throughout the centuries.

I will illustrate the futility of each of these arguments in the light of the Scripture.

In Matthew 23, Yeshua was speaking to people before his propitiatory sacrifice on the cross, which fulfilled the Mosaic covenant and was the seal of the New Covenant. Thus, at that moment in time, his listeners were still under Old Covenant with Mosaic order being its substance. The Pharisees, being the religious administrators of that order held religious authority which Yeshua, sent to fulfil Mosaic Law, was obviously recognising. We see it in various places in the Scriptures, e.g. Mark 1:40-44. However, His death and resurrection brought the dissolution of the Mosaic order and rendered obsolete the Old Covenant (Hebrews 8:13), making the previous one no longer binding on any of His followers.

In the first period of the early church, although some of the believers may have been gathering in the synagogues, the whole structure of assembly and worship underwent great changes. Nowhere in the book of Acts or in the Epistles do we read of any weight placed on the authority of the rabbis. Instead, we read in Ephesians 4:11 that God gave different members of His body different gifts that they are to exercise for the building-up of His church. When the apostle Paul was exhorting his brethren in 1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 to respect those who had an oversight in the church, clearly he did not mean the rabbis who rejected Yeshua’s Messiahship.

Taking into account their rejection of Yeshua and His teaching, acknowledgement of rabbis’ scholastic authority, for a Messianic Jew or Jewish Christian, is a complete contradiction in terms. How can we acknowledge their authority if their first injunction would be for us to abandon our faith and to revoke our Messiah?

What can be ascribed to the teachers of the law is their technical knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. Unfortunately, they led the masses of Jewish people into the eternal destruction of hell (Matthew 23:13).

The rabbis’ contribution to the national survival of Jewish people throughout the centuries was no more crucial than the contribution of King Cyrus of Persia in bringing Jewish people back from the exile in 538 B.C. Both, rabbis and King Cyrus, were strangers to God’s grace but were used by God to fulfil His plans.

Rabbinical tradition relies on a man-invented, human-centred system. In Isaiah 29:13 and Colossians 2:8 we are warned against following man’s teaching. The danger of it can be clearly seen in the multitude of once Biblical and sane churches, which less than a century ago went slightly off the Scriptural norm and are now liberal and dead. Think also of individuals who left Messianic congregations and joined synagogues to have a “real taste” of what the “kosher life” is.

Questions like: Why should Jewish believers’ prayers follow the Sidur in the light of the freedom of worship which we enjoy in Messiah? and, Why should Messianic leaders call themselves rabbis, a term nowhere sanctioned in the New Testament regarding Yeshua’s disciples? can be multiplied without finding any satisfactory answer.

Let us then, worship Yeshua and live for him in the way that is required by, and acceptable to Him. This is prescribed by His Word alone and not according to other rules contrived throughout the centuries.

Andrew Prochaska, BMJA member, Belfast

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