Messianic Audio Teachings

"We were held captive under the law ... imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed ... but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian" (Galatians 3:23-26). This difficult saying is understood to mean, "The Torah was only a guardian until faith in Messiah came, but now that the Messiah is here, we are no longer under the Torah's authority, therefore the Torah has been done away with." This teaching takes a look at Paul's analogy in which the Torah and Jewish status is compared to a paidagogos, a guardian-slave entrusted with the care and supervision of a child. 

Humility is one of the primary qualities of the soul emphasized by our Master Yeshua. The mussar teachers say that humility is the root of divine service, and a necessary foundation for acquiring any other good traits. While humility is often discussed, it is not always well understood. Learn how true humility leads to joy, courage, and inner dignity.

Paul says, "The Torah is not faith." This seems to imply that, if you want to be a person of faith, the one thing you chould not do is observe the Torah. Does this make sense? In Galatians 3:11-12, Paul quotes Leviticus 18:5 and Habakkuk 2:4 in a manner consistent with rabbinic interpretation to establish that it is not the hearers of the Torah who will be declared righteous but the doers of the Torah. 

God's concealed miracles are with us every day, but he desires to reveal them to us. In the future, everything that has been concealed with be revealed. A story in Midrash Tanchuma from Parashat Chukkat illustrates the concept of God's hidden miracles that are constantly with us.

Have you ever heard of faith versus works? The theological argument about whether God saves a person by grace alone or if a person's obedience and good works are a necessary part of the equation is old as the New Testament itself. This teaching offers a resolution of the classic faith-versus-works debate through exploring Paul's theology of justification for the circumcised and the uncircumcised. 

Order the book, Holy Epistle to the Galatians.

Paul says, "Through the Law I Died to the Law." What is that supposed to mean? Take a look at the mystical implications of Paul's death to the law as a death to relying on Jewish identity for salvation. 

Did Paul really rebuke Peter "to his face"? In Galatians 2:11-14, Paul recounts how Peter, on his visit to Antioch, separated from the God-fearing Gentile believers and incurred Paul's sound rebuke. Get the story behind the story. 

For the last eighteen hundred years, the church has triumphantly declared that the gospel has cancelled the Torah and that Gentile Christians have replaced the Jewish people. Those dogmas stem from a failture to understand the distinction between Peter's apostleship and Paul's apostleship. As the apostles endorse Paul and send him out as the "apostle to the Gentiles," they do so with one caveat: "Remember the poor ones!" Find out the surprising meaning behind that single instruction. 

Was Paul a  Lone Ranger and John Wayne type of apostle who heard directly from God, or did he honor higher authorities? In this episode, Paul goes up to Jerusalem to submit his gospel of Gentile inclusion to the authority of the apostles, fearing that he may have been running his race in vain. 

"I set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running or had run in vain." (Galatians 2:2)