Bible Study
For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Romans 13:9 ESV
Was Paul saying that "Love your neighbor as yourself" sums up only the Ten Commandments and not all the rest of God's instructions? No! Because all of the rest of God's commandments are summed up in the Ten. To love your neighbor is to keep all of God's commandments, not just the Ten.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”
Romans 12:19 ESV
"Vengeance is mine, says the Lord" does not mean we shouldn't pursue justice or restitution, but it does mean that we shouldn't be trying to get even, to make other people hurt just because they made us hurt. Our goal should always be to make the world a better place, not to make everyone equally miserable.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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How can you bless someone who curses you? Is it just saying nice things about them? Or is it taking an active role in repairing the broken relationship?
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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Paul said we are to abhor what is evil and hold fast to what is good, but what is evil and what is good? The Bible is the only reliable source we have to identify these things. Whatever God says is evil, we should abhor. Whatever God says is good, we should hold fast to.
Food is nothing. Circumcision is nothing. Holy days are nothing. Obedience to God and relationship with him is everything, and so we abhor what he abhors and hold fast to what he holds fast.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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Division in the body of Messiah does not bring glory to God. Although such division is prophesied throughout Scripture in stories like that of Joseph and his brothers, it's a shameful thing. We need to submit to one another on matters of opinion on which the Bible is silent or ambiguous.
The story of Judah and Tamar is inserted in the middle of the story of Joseph so that we can see the contrast between the two men. There are numerous parallels between their stories. Here are just a few:
-Signs of authority: Joseph's robe and Judah's ring/staff/cord
-Identity via signs: Whose robe is this? and Whose ring/staff/cord is this?
-Relation to Father: Joseph is favored and Judah seeks favor
-Separated to foreigners: Joseph by force and Judah by choice
-Priest's daughter: Asenath the Egyptian and Tamar the Canaanite
-Tempted: Potiphar's wife and Tamar
-Twin swap: Ephraim/Manasseh and Perez/Zerah
-Loss of sons: By adoption and by death
Wild Branch Community in Brenham, Texas, also talked about the adoption of foreigners (such as Tamar, Rahab, you, and me) into Israel, the reasons for levirate marriage, and some of the cultural norms behind this controversial story.
Wild Branch Community is a home fellowship of Torah-observant believers in Texas between Houston and Austin. Find out more about us at https://WildBranchTX.org.
Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
Romans 12:6-8 ESV
God gives everyone a range of skillsets that we can use in service to his kingdom. Leadership, administration, mechanics, languages, etc. The list of possible gifts of God is endless! In this passage Paul mentions several of those gifts, and here's what each of them is really about.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
Romans 12:3 ESV
The grace Paul is speaking of is the favor God showed him in appointing him as an apostle to the nations, and all of the authority and responsibility that comes with that commission.
Grace isn't a divinely bestowed super power. It's unobligated favor, an honor bestowed on one person by another. Just as God showed Paul grace in making him a teacher and evangelist, he graces every person in his kingdom with a unique set of skills and a mission to accomplish for the his glory and for the growth of his kingdom. That doesn't mean we all have a commission as high as Paul's, but as Paul pointed out elsewhere, every part of a body is important, no matter how lowly it might seem.
God has given you grace by making you who you are and by giving you a role to play in his plan.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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Romans 11:30-32 ESV For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, 31 so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. 32 For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.
How does God use our disobedience to bring us (and the Jews!) to repentance and restoration to relationship with him?
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.
Romans 11:23-24 ESV
Very few native branches of Israel were left on the tree after the first few centuries of Christianity, so that today both the native and the wild branches need to be grafted back into the olive tree of Israel. God has promised that he will restore the genetic descendants of Jacob, and he has the power to do it!
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 15:5-6 ESV
Disciples of Yeshua shouldn't divide over relatively minor issues. We don't have to agree on everything, but we also shouldn't bring shame on God's name by public (or private!) bickering over matters of opinion that aren't central to our common faith in God and the Messiah of Israel.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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If the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, so is the whole lump, and if the root is holy, so are the branches.
Romans 11:16 ESV
What does "firstfruits" and "root" refer to in Romans 11:16? The context makes it clear. This chapter is talking about how God will never forsake the natural branches of Israel because of the promises he made to Israel's patriarchs. The firstfruit of the dough and the root of the tree are the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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So I ask, did [the Jews] stumble in order that they might fall? By no means! Rather, through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!
Romans 11:11-12 ESV
How did the failure of the Jews to accept their Messiah mean riches for the Gentiles? In the same way that the failure of Israel to repent in Jonah's day meant riches for at least one generation of the people of Ninevah. The ministries of Paul and Jonah are parallel in many ways. Jonah can even be thought of as the first apostle to the nations, a foreshadowing of Paul's ministry.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?
Romans 11:1-2 ESV
People love to use Romans and "A true Jew is one who is a Jew inwardly" to say that God has permanently rejected the Jews and canceled his covenant with them, but Paul refutes that idea in the very same letter.
The apostate Israelites of Elijah's day didn't stop being Israel because they were apostate. God always preserves a remnant of the natural descendants of Jacob and, through them, the whole nation. Nor can he reject his covenant with them. So long as God himself lives and a single descendant of Jacob lives, God cannot annul the covenant that made Israel his people.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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Tov Rose joined the Common Sense Bible Study community for a live conversation about God's Fall Feasts.
All of God's appointed times are profound illustrations of his plan of redemption over the millennia. The Sabbath, the Spring feasts, and the Fall feasts are pictures of how God wants to relate to us as well as prophetic of how his plan will play out in history. Every one of them look both forward and backward at God's interventions in history.
We talked about Yom Teruah (aka Rosh Hashanah), Yom Kippur, and Sukkot among many other topics.
Tov is the founder of the New Messianic Version (NMV) Bible Project & Foundation and has authored hundreds of articles and over twenty books including, The New Messianic Version Bible (available through the YouVersion Bible App, Bible.com, and Amazon). A few others include: The Baptism of Jesus from a Jewish Perspective, Jesus in the Old Testament, Jesus in the Targums, Jesus in the Jewish Wedding, Jesus in the Passover, The Book of GOD: For Men, and more found on this website and available through most booksellers. He has several websites you should check out:
https://TovRose.com
https://tovrose.substack.com
https://nmvbible.com
https://thehappytheologist.org
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
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The Bible is a collection of ancient books. It contains the oldest stories known to mankind, written in ancient languages by people who lived between 2000 and 4000 years ago and written to their contemporaries. If you can read more than one modern language, you are probably aware that it is next to impossible to understand any complex text written in a foreign language without knowing something about the culture into which it was written, their myths, religion, lifestyle, economy, and politics.
Add a few thousand years time gap, and this problem increases exponentially. Nobody on earth today lives in a culture quite like the ones in which the Biblical authors lived. That world doesn't exist anymore.
David Wilber is an author, Bible teacher, Messianic/Christian apologist, and joint CEO of Pronomian Publishing LLC. He has written several books and numerous theological articles. Additionally, David speaks at churches and conferences across the nation. He has served as a researcher and Bible teacher for ministries such as 119 Ministries, Founded in Truth Fellowship, Freedom Hill Community, and InspiringPhilosophy. David currently lives in Lake Wylie, SC, with his wife and two children.
David's most recent book is How Jesus Fulfilled the Law: A Pronomian Pocked Guide to Matthew 5:17-20 (https://amzn.to/4d0DK1E Amazon affiliate link), and his homepage is https://DavidWilber.com.
David recommended Craig Keener's work The IVP Bible Background Commentary, which you can get at https://amzn.to/3zeWo7V . (Amazon affiliate link! I earn a small commission if you buy through that link.)
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com). This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
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Revealing the truth about the woman caught in adultery and the famous "I am" statement in John 8 does not mean what most teach.
This video is part of a series on the study of the Gospel of John. Previous chapters are available at the link. Further chapters will be uploaded as they come available. https://firstcenturychristiani....ty.net/the-gospel-of
Paul tells us that before a person can call out to God, he must be convinced that there is a reason to do so. Faith comes from hearing. This is the same message that Yeshua gave in the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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Quoting Deuteronomy 30:14 in Romans 10:8, Paul makes a powerful rhetorical connection between Yeshua and the Law of Moses. The Torah gives life, but only to those who have already confessed Yeshua as their Master and Savior.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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The Jews had the Torah for many centuries by the time Yeshua came to inaugurate the New Covenant that had been promised through Jeremiah at the midpoint between himself and Moses. Their familiarity with the Law and their pride at having been chosen above other nations led them to believe the Law was sufficient for all their spiritual needs. The gentiles had no such barrier to overcome, being presented with their guilt and salvation at the same time.
Making Torah (aka the Law) the object of our lives leads inevitably to failure. We ought never to keep God's Law for the sake of the Law itself nor for the sake of the veneer of righteousness that it provides, but for the sake of the Lawgiver who gave us His Torah out of love for us and a desire to see us succeed as children of God and citizens of His Kingdom. Torah is a blessing and a guide to those who keep it out of love for our Creator and Redeemer. It is a curse and an obstacle to those who attempt to keep it pridefully.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
This content is free, but I accept contributions via Paypal at https://jaycarper.com/paypal.
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Romans 9 is the core of Calvinism's doctrine of irresistible grace in the eternal salvation and condemnation of individual people, yet this chapter isn't even about eternal salvation! Paul's use of the potter and clay analogy is from Isaiah 29 that speaks of God's temporary hardening of Israel because of their sins. They blinded themselves with pride, so he blinded them further to ensure that his judgment would be carried out, with the intent that the nation would eventually repent and be restored.
From Jay Carper at Common Sense Bible Study (https://CommonSenseBibleStudy.com) and American Torah (https://www.AmericanTorah.com).
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