I mentioned in a previous post that Jesus did not start a new religion called Christianity.
Jesus was a Jewish man that chose twelve Jewish men as His disciples. (A disciple is a student.)
Jesus was devoted to His faith, which was based on all the writings of the Old Covenant. This was the only ‘Bible’ that existed when Jesus was alive on Earth. The New Covenant portion of the Bible was not written until many years after Jesus died.
Note: The English word Bible comes from the Greek word biblios, meaning books or scrolls. Later, it was translated into Latin, biblia, meaning book.
The writings of the Old Covenant include the Law of Moses, which are the first five books of the Bible. The Jewish people refer to these five books as Torah. Torah is a Hebrew word that means law or instruction.
The Old Covenant also includes the writings of the prophets and poetic books like the psalms.
Jesus followed the teachings of the Old Covenant and had faith in the God of Israel — which is the basis of Judaism. Jesus referred to the Old Covenant writings as the Word of God and the scriptures.
“He that loves me not keeps not my sayings: and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.”
“And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
Many Christians erroneously believe that Jesus ‘did away’ with the Old Covenant writings because they think Jesus lived under the New Covenant writings. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard Christians say, “We’re not under the law; we’re under grace.” They have been taught to view the Old Covenant as a ‘law’ that Jesus did away with and ‘grace’ as a privilege Jesus initiated for Christians. This is a lie.
“Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.”
Ancient Hebrew letters
Note: A jot refers to the smallest part of the Hebrew alphabet; a tittle refers to a line or flourish used in writing the Hebrew letters.
Many Christians see a difference between the two sections of the Bible (the Old and New Covenants) because they see Judaism and Christianity as two different religions. However, the New Testament describes the ‘early church’ as a Jewish faith with Jewish practices, all of which have been lost over the past two thousand years. Someone has removed the Jewish identity from Jesus’ church and it wasn’t Jesus!
To be continued…
Bible passages to study:
John 14:24, Luke 24:27, Matthew 5:17-18
