Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 866 ｜ Why Christians Don't Need Jewish Traditions ｜ Guests： Jeremiah Roberts & Andrew Soncrant of 'Cultish' (Part Two)

00:00:00.000 The Hebrew Roots Movement, the insistence by a growing number of Christians upon abiding by

00:00:06.420 Old Testament rules and regulations, is a reaction to the paganism that has overtaken American

00:00:12.040 culture. But reacting to paganism or secularism is not synonymous with Christianity. This is part

00:00:19.560 two of a two-part conversation with the hosts of Cultish, Jeremiah Roberts and Andrew Sondkrant,

00:00:25.300 warning about a segment of Christianity or professing Christianity that has taken captive

00:00:32.060 many in the church today. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to

00:00:38.240 goodranchers.com. Use code Allie at checkout. That's goodranchers.com, code Allie.

00:00:43.540 As y'all were explaining the anti-Trinitarian aspects of some of the beliefs of some of the

00:00:59.380 people who adhere to the Hebrew Roots Movement, not celebrating Christmas and Easter, I was like,

00:01:04.560 this sounds a lot like Jehovah's Witnesses. And I was just interested if you guys had seen any

00:01:09.280 crossover or if it just kind of happens that this is how it goes when you step outside of

00:01:16.700 Orthodox Christianity and step into some form of legalism. Now, it's obviously different because

00:01:22.240 as you said, there are people who adhere to parts of Hebrew roots who do really love Jesus and they're

00:01:28.000 sincere in what they're trying to do. They might just be misled, whereas Jehovah's Witnesses is not

00:01:33.460 Christianity at all. But it's interesting that there is some crossover there.

00:01:37.260 Yeah, absolutely. Because it comes from like what Jerry was saying earlier about the

00:01:41.480 Restoration Movement. And we see that taking place in the 1800s because there's a belief during that

00:01:46.800 time, during the second quote unquote Great Awakening, where there was a great apostasy.

00:01:53.820 Essentially, Mormonism holds the belief. Jehovah's Witnesses will hold that belief that there was the

00:01:58.780 truth of God in the gospel. Jesus Christ was lost after the apostles. And then now in these last days

00:02:06.480 that it is being restored to us. And typically the presuppositions behind those arguments is that

00:02:11.740 the Council of Nicaea was pagan, Constantine, paganized Christianity, things of that nature.

00:02:17.900 A lot of these movements take place on attacking the historic creeds of Christianity that happened

00:02:24.020 long ago, that there was a truth that was lost and now it's restored. And so since they're saying

00:02:29.940 that these things were paganized, then you can logically follow that holidays must be pagan as well.

00:02:35.160 We can't trust history. Things of that nature. I mean, that's where we see pretty much every cult

00:02:43.140 coming from the United States of America or cult-like movement, shall I say, starts during this period

00:02:48.960 of time during the Restoration. It's pretty incredible if you think about it. It's sad. Also, we can go

00:02:56.580 Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Millerites, and the beginning roots of Seventh-day Adventism.

00:03:03.000 All of these things have foundational presuppositions, which is you can't trust history. The gospel has

00:03:11.100 been lost and now it's going to be restored. Even Alexander Campbell and the Campbellites in the

00:03:14.420 early Church of Christ. So all of it takes place then. And what's interesting as well is Alexander

00:03:19.980 Hyssop's book on the mythologies of essentially reconstructed history of holidays also was written

00:03:28.140 around the time of the early to mid-1800s. And that's where we get a lot of this mythological

00:03:33.600 arguments against Halloween and Christmas, which have been debunked by real historians.

00:03:40.960 Okay. I just had a thought as you were saying that. I was like, wow, yeah, that's so true. They

00:03:44.520 all kind of share this premise of we are the, we are going to be the ones, the central figure,

00:03:51.460 Joseph Smith or whatever, we are going to be the ones to restore the real gospel. This is not new.

00:03:55.520 This is how it was always supposed to be. Now that sounds a little bit like the Reformation.

00:04:03.420 Obviously I am a reformed Protestant, but I could see how a Catholic friend listening to this would

00:04:09.620 say, well, isn't that kind of what Martin Luther did? Which I think we all know our arguments, but

00:04:15.380 I could see someone saying that's kind of similar. No, this is how it was always supposed to be. The real

00:04:21.460 gospel has been lost. The real scripture has been lost. Don't trust these councils. Don't trust

00:04:25.420 the Catholic church. Don't trust some of these church fathers. Martin Luther, I have the real

00:04:30.740 gospel. Well, what would you say to that? That was just a thought that I had as you were explaining it.

00:04:37.100 Jerry, you want to go first?

00:04:38.960 Well, my authority is not Martin Luther. Yeah. Like that's not, that's not Martin Luther's not

00:04:44.680 the standard. Like I've, the only thing, honestly, I've read by Martin Luther, there's a website that's

00:04:50.440 actually kind of funny. It's called a Luther's insults. So he was very brash with a lot of the

00:04:55.260 things that he would say, like he would say, I, I don't know if I want to even paraphrase the quote,

00:04:59.940 you might have to believe it out, but it's, it's very, it's called the, you click on this website and

00:05:03.900 it says, insult me Luther. And it'll just have some random quote against calling, you know, some very

00:05:08.560 colorful names to somebody, you know, he believed was a heretic. But honestly, our authority when it comes to

00:05:15.520 this is scripture, we look at what was, what was articulated in the first century when the apostle

00:05:21.100 Paul was writing to the Romans, like, what is he talking about justification by faith? I get,

00:05:26.220 I get the fact that, uh, you know, Luther and his reformation, they're looking to reform the church.

00:05:31.800 They thought the church had lost its ways, but we have sources. We are standard is scripture,

00:05:35.940 which comes from the first century when the canon was accumulated. So we're, that's,

00:05:43.640 that's what we're going to. We're not looking at Luther or Calvin or any of these, you know,

00:05:49.120 those of us who adhere to a form of reform theology. Like I've never read a book by John

00:05:53.520 Calvin. I know of the books, but when it comes to even my convictions regarding, you know,

00:05:58.560 soteriology, when it comes to that, like I have convictions, what scriptures, what scripture says

00:06:03.380 of what, what that is, that's, that's not the primary authority. So that's, that's how I would say

00:06:07.940 in contrast to that. And then again, that's a whole, that's a, actually a topic we are going to

00:06:12.520 explore, uh, in a probably future episode of cultures as well to Andrew, what are your thoughts

00:06:16.740 on that too? Yeah, I'm going to echo that on authority. So with regards to the Protestant

00:06:21.540 reformation and the Roman Catholic church, and let's say Mormonism, Jehovah's witness, uh, parts

00:06:26.240 of the Hebrew roots movement, uh, worldwide church of God, we have to think about what the authority

00:06:31.200 is. So what Martin Luther was telling people is like, this is what the Roman Catholic church

00:06:36.600 doesn't have the authority to interpret the Bible for you in terms of penance, uh, things of that

00:06:42.760 nature were justified by faith, not by a Pope who's telling us exactly how we are supposed to be,

00:06:49.160 uh, justified by God. We need to develop our doctrines solely through the word of God.

00:06:54.000 Uh, so what's going on within restorationist movements is you see that they do the very same

00:06:59.340 thing, uh, as let's say the Roman Catholic church, for example, it's that, uh, we have a,

00:07:04.960 we have a person, uh, let's say the watchtower track society. You can't necessarily read the

00:07:08.820 Bible for yourself. You also have to go through the watchtower track society for people who don't

00:07:13.080 know. Exactly. I'm sorry. Yeah. For, um, for you in order to understand the scripture. So with

00:07:18.380 Mormonism, well, then we have Joseph Smith. I'm a prophet of God and I am writing the book of Mormon

00:07:22.680 and you have to go through the book of Mormon, go through me in order to understand what the Bible

00:07:26.940 is actually teaching. We have a separate standard other than the Bible, uh, with Hebrew roots

00:07:31.220 movements. Uh, we can understand as well. There's so many diverse views that are actually, um, in

00:07:36.680 conflict with one another inside the movement, because you need a guru. You need this person

00:07:40.500 with special knowledge to tell you exactly what you need to follow, not necessarily read the Bible

00:07:44.880 for yourself and follow it that way. So in terms of Martin Luther and within historic Christianity,

00:07:50.960 even looking at the early church fathers and their writings, we can find that the Bible is the

00:07:56.040 soul infallible rule of faith and practice. It's not an extra council of men or develop what the

00:08:02.400 Bible says. It's just the councils were developed like the council of Nicaea in order to combat those

00:08:07.900 things from occurring because there were people, for example, the council of Nicaea, which happened

00:08:11.300 in three 25 AD who were denying the deity of Jesus Christ. They were saying that he was not the eternal

00:08:17.120 God, that he was a created being. And that's a big deal because the Bible itself, not the men,

00:08:21.780 the Bible is showing you that no, Jesus Christ is the eternal God. So it was a correction occurring

00:08:27.980 within time. Uh, so the Protestant reformation has nothing to do with what was going on in the

00:08:32.960 restoration because it's the Bible. It's the soul infallible rule of faith and practice, not a

00:08:38.080 council or a single person. Uh, that's the beautiful thing about Jesus too. And his church, he says,

00:08:43.440 go make disciples of all nations. Uh, in, in, it's a beautiful thing that we can have denominational

00:08:49.200 differences in that. The word of God is our standard. And the differences that we have

00:08:53.800 are audio opera, meaning they're small differences. They're not gospel issues. Like what is the gospel?

00:08:59.880 How are you justified? Who is Jesus? But minor sub issues. Whereas if you look at the restorationist

00:09:06.540 movement, because they have an external standard, uh, through all of these cult like movements,

00:09:11.660 every difference that they have is astronomical because you have someone who's making changes to

00:09:17.040 what the word of God says, and you must go through them first, instead of going directly to God's

00:09:20.540 word.

00:09:33.340 I would say that Martin Luther and the reformers were doing the exact opposite of what some of these,

00:09:38.480 uh, cultish leaders were doing during that time period, because rather than saying,

00:09:44.980 I have special knowledge that has not been written down, that just comes from me. And I'm going to

00:09:50.820 tell you something new. He actually says, no, I want the knowledge that has already been written

00:09:55.940 down to be made for everyone. I want it to be accessible to you. He actually felt like almost

00:10:02.260 the Catholic church was holding this special knowledge. Well, only we know the Bible. Only we

00:10:06.940 can interpret the Bible. Only we can tell you what the Bible says. And Oh, by the way, you need to pay

00:10:11.360 these indulgences because it's going to help your loved ones get out of purgatory. And so it was

00:10:16.620 really the opposite rather than saying there's special knowledge that only certain people can

00:10:20.320 access. No, he believed that the average peasant should be able to access the gospel and the word

00:10:25.700 of God. He was totally unafraid of the truth being completely unleashed. And that's what distinguishes

00:10:32.540 Christianity. But in particular, the reformation from these kind of gnostic sects that say, Oh,

00:10:41.600 no, no, no, no, no. Don't trust what's written down and what you can easily understand. I'm going

00:10:45.980 to give you something far more complex, therefore, far more sophisticated and therefore more salvific

00:10:53.280 than anything that you've heard so far.

00:10:55.180 Yeah. And in fact, in fact, one of the areas when you talk about, you know, by what standard,

00:11:00.720 by how do you even judge these movements? So a lot of times, whether it's Hebrew roots,

00:11:06.080 whether it's any sort of restorationist group, there is sort of this aesthetic of like, you need

00:11:10.660 to come to me and understand my special teaching and my special knowledge. And one of the primary

00:11:16.040 refutations of that is scripture being self authenticating, which is in the first John

00:11:20.700 two, 26 and 27. And the apostle John says, I write these things to you about those who are

00:11:27.120 trying to deceive you by the anointing that you have received from him abides in you. And you have

00:11:32.700 no need for anyone to teach you, but his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and no lie,

00:11:39.600 just as he taught you abide in him. So what you see is that one of the primary rules of the Holy

00:11:45.080 Spirit, which is something that Jesus gave at Pentecost to all believers in Jesus Christ,

00:11:49.320 is the gift of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit now, for example, brings conviction of sin.

00:11:54.740 That's one of the primary things that happens when a new believer in Jesus Christ is born again.

00:12:00.020 But another thing too, is that the Holy Spirit works to sort of illuminate the text of scripture

00:12:05.080 and to make it come alive. Now, obviously, you know, scripture does talk about having, you know,

00:12:10.340 pastors, rulers, authorities that you need to submit to, and there's places for that.

00:12:15.300 But the primary role between the mediator between God and man is the man Christ Jesus. And the

00:12:20.780 primary, and you have pastors, obviously, who expose the word of God. But there's checks and

00:12:26.260 balances where the Holy Spirit is the one who illuminates the text. And so a good pastor would

00:12:31.020 say, don't judge what I'm saying. I'm not the final authority. Scripture is. And judge what I'm

00:12:36.280 saying. That's what our pastors teach. And what's also just interesting as well, too, when it comes to

00:12:41.180 the Hebrew Roots movement, is that the movement isn't primarily about reaching non-believers.

00:12:47.400 It's really focused in on sort of targeted towards Christians, people who are in churches. And,

00:12:54.200 you know, a lot of times people have understandable grievances, whether it's church hypocrisy.

00:13:00.660 You have pastors, for example, who are, you know, they're unfaithful towards their wife,

00:13:05.080 and they have to step down. That's wrecks people. There's been tons of stories of churches that have

00:13:09.420 fallen apart, and people who experience church hurt, or just all sorts of issues, whether you

00:13:13.520 talk about the commercialized church. I mean, what was the pastor that did that crazy Easter service?

00:13:20.100 Mike Todd.

00:13:21.480 Mike Todd. That was insane.

00:13:23.960 Yeah.

00:13:24.100 I can only imagine somebody who's in the Hebrew Roots would take a look at something like that.

00:13:29.160 That's just bananas. Like, what on earth were they thinking? And they only shut the social media

00:13:35.040 down, I think, when they got the backlash. But that's, it's an example where you see they are

00:13:40.320 trying to reach out in many ways to Christians who have grievances and say, hey, the reason is,

00:13:45.960 is because the church has lost its way. We need to, the only way, true way to follow him is through

00:13:51.740 this Torah observance. Now you need to, and it's not just about observing these things. This is now your

00:13:57.360 new identity, where now you can either, you know, study with me. A lot of times people,

00:14:01.840 they'll pull people away from churches into house churches. And this, where a lot, where a lot of

00:14:06.960 these things get emphasized. And again, there's always some sort of gateway. It could be an issue

00:14:11.160 of people having, you know, looking at the current version of Halloween, which now when you look at,

00:14:15.940 you know, the LGBT, how we talk about how Halloween always incorporates the culture at large. And so

00:14:21.380 you're probably going to see in this upcoming Halloween, because of this, the influx of paganism here in

00:14:27.540 the West. And now the LGBT explosion, which is really a by-product of just the explosion of

00:14:33.300 paganism, where masculine, feminine get distorted. But you're going to see people who will say,

00:14:38.940 well, the reason is, is because Halloween is pagan. We need to celebrate the feast. So that could be

00:14:43.260 another way in which they go into. But again, when you go to the primary sources behind this movement,

00:14:49.020 a lot of it is based in the 19th century. And usually restorationism, one of the ways they try and,

00:14:55.860 the appeal to it as a whole, it's a nice caveat and get around from scores and scores of church

00:15:03.560 history. And one of the primary refutations, too, of the idea that the church would fall away is that

00:15:08.980 this is what Jesus Christ said upon his church. He said, upon this rock, I will establish my church

00:15:13.860 and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. And that's not even a defensive position.

00:15:19.260 That's talking about offensive, when you're trying to breach the gates. So you have that aspect,

00:15:24.880 but then you see at the end of Ephesians, how the apostle Paul talks about how the glory of Christ

00:15:29.740 and the church of Christ would be a beacon throughout all generations. There's not going

00:15:34.700 to be sort of this pure version in the first century. And all of a sudden it disappears for

00:15:39.900 1800 years. And whoa, look at me. I've got it. Because guess what? For every Hebrew roots movement,

00:15:45.420 there's a Joseph Smith. And you have a whole, it's almost like if you've seen the animation of the

00:15:49.540 Spider-Mans, you'll all point at each other, you know, say like, you're the real Spider-Man,

00:15:53.180 you're the caveat. All these restorationists are all sort of pointing at each other. So no,

00:15:56.880 I'm the real one. I'm the real Slim Shady. No, no, you're not. No, it's not. And because the

00:16:02.280 reality is, is that scripture says that Christ's church is always going to stand. And there's

00:16:07.280 always issues of where we need to reform ourselves. We need to think about how we're conducting

00:16:12.820 ourselves as pastors, how we're dealing with different conflicts. There's always, the church

00:16:17.320 is very imperfect. And I've had my own era of like problems growing up in church, but they're like,

00:16:22.300 what do you do with that? You need to go back to the text and understand the existence of a

00:16:27.320 counterfeit predicates the authenticity of an original. And the problem is, is that the Hebrew

00:16:32.940 roots movement, again, very sweet people. I like, I really, I've had conversations with a few of them

00:16:37.720 is that they take what are real and understandable, tangible problems that the church needs to deal

00:16:43.540 with and shouldn't shy away from. But then they use a catalyst to really put in a burden or a yoke.

00:16:49.260 And in some cases, depending on who the movement is, they go to challenge essentials of the faith

00:16:54.880 that puts you back out of the realm of first John, where you start to deny that Jesus is God

00:16:59.240 come in the flesh. And that's where it goes in the realm of no longer being an orthodox conversation,

00:17:03.900 someone who's an heir of someone who is a wolf, because they are denying the very truth of who

00:17:09.320 Jesus Christ is. Right. I think we see this in a lot of aspects of the church. And again,

00:17:13.760 it's understandable, like, as someone who is a conservative, I understand, for example,

00:17:18.920 a reaction to feminism, because feminism has wrought a lot of destruction. But then you swing

00:17:25.740 all the way over here, maybe to whatever form it is, if it's condescension of women, believing that

00:17:30.480 women shouldn't talk at all, period, whatever it is. So you take an equally unbiblical view,

00:17:35.840 but that feels better, because it's stricter. And it's the opposite of feminism. It's the opposite of

00:17:42.540 liberalism. And so it feels more biblical. But the opposite of something is not necessarily

00:17:48.420 the biblical option, whether you're talking about following the law or whatever it is,

00:17:54.520 grace and law, there's a difference between legalism and holiness. There's a difference

00:18:00.020 between the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction of liberalism and actually being biblical.

00:18:08.060 I think a lot of people who swing in reaction to the depravity of the culture think that they are

00:18:16.160 doing so in the name of sanctification when really, and all of us have fallen prey to this in some way,

00:18:22.760 when really they are also just being affected by secular culture. Because no matter what issue it is,

00:18:30.000 we are all to be led by the Spirit. That's how we're sanctified. We're not sanctified in reaction

00:18:34.860 to the culture. We are sanctified by the leading of the Holy Spirit. So I think all of us need to be

00:18:40.600 careful in that. And we need to make sure that the direction that we're going is closer towards truth

00:18:45.640 through the revealed wisdom that we have in the Word, not just because we want to be anti-whatever

00:18:52.680 the world is. I think that there's a difference there.

00:18:56.480 Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think one of the other refutations as well, too, and we're on Zoom,

00:19:01.640 so I'll just jump in here in a second, is really when you look at what was really taking place in

00:19:06.940 the first century, even the first couple of centuries after the church, as Rome was expanding

00:19:11.940 and also Christianity was expanding as well, too, there's an amazing series that's probably about

00:19:17.860 30 years old. I think you can find it on Amazon Prime called The Trial and Testimony

00:19:22.020 of the Early Church. And what you see is that one of the things that Christianity stood out,

00:19:28.240 which was so distinctive and why it just exploded in Rome, because Rome was so, they had expanded so

00:19:34.980 quickly that they really gave people a lot of room to kind of worship and their own gods and

00:19:40.480 practice their own culture in their own specific way. They just had to give a pinch on the incense to

00:19:45.120 Caesar. And that's obviously, if you know the whole story, that's why Christians were persecuted

00:19:49.600 and killed, because they would not say that Caesar is Lord. But what you saw, which was so amazing,

00:19:54.840 is that you had tribes from every background, whether it was Greek, Roman, Nordic. So you think

00:20:02.900 of like a Leonidas, a Ragnar Lothbrok, you know, all these different cultures that have been killing

00:20:08.740 each other, murdering each other for centuries that hated each other. And all of a sudden, they're all

00:20:14.540 coming together, taking the tape at the Lord's table, and they have this unity. And that's what you

00:20:22.060 see, like in Ephesians, where it talks about how Christ has broken down the barrier between Jew and

00:20:28.440 Gentile, thus becoming one. And so what you end up seeing, even this movement, you see this over

00:20:33.900 correction, where as someone who's been overseas and on mission trips, and I've talked with other

00:20:39.320 missionaries, the most amazing thing of seeing someone from a very different culture than you,

00:20:44.400 is that there's obviously culture shock when you go there. But when someone over there gets saved,

00:20:48.400 like Christ saves them, their person, but their identity is still embedded within their culture.

00:20:54.700 There isn't a different culture they have to adapt to versus Islam, where you convert and you now have

00:21:01.060 to, you know, you have to give the adherence in Arabic, regardless of what language that you speak

00:21:05.700 with. Like Christ changes that person within the confines of their culture, and then they become a

00:21:12.300 light to other people in their culture. So if someone is saved in the projects, that doesn't mean you

00:21:17.060 have to wear a suit, a tie and comb your hair in a specific way. No, you have, you now get to talk

00:21:23.040 about Jesus, regeneration. I miss the old Lecrae, by the way. And this is what this is something I

00:21:28.300 think about. But like, when you look at his earlier content, like, that's a lot of what he was doing.

00:21:32.940 No one said he had to, he was articulating the gospel in that way. And the error that the Hebrew

00:21:38.260 roots takes is that they say, no, you need to sort of, regardless of what tribe or culture you come

00:21:43.800 from, you need to sort of adhere to sort of this arbitrary Jewishness. When in the reality, even if

00:21:49.700 you look at the New Testament in the book of Hebrews, it was really talking about what the forefathers

00:21:55.580 were looking towards to, that's the whole book of Hebrews is about, knowing namely that Jesus is the

00:22:01.580 Messiah, and he was going to bring people from every tongue, tribe and nation to himself. So that's

00:22:08.240 just something that is, it's an unfortunate grave error, in my belief that the Hebrew roots movement

00:22:14.320 has. But I think one of the counteracts is to understand what the original is.

00:22:19.260 Well, I had some thoughts on what Ali was saying in terms of reactionary, how we can fall into these

00:22:36.300 traps, the church being reactionary to the culture around us. I forget who said this, but it's a pastor,

00:22:43.820 I believe, who said the culture is the report card of the church, right? So as Christians,

00:22:50.240 which I think we can echo out through the situation is that Jesus Christ into the power of the gospel,

00:22:56.240 we have the ability to magnify culture, whether it be different, to make it find meaning in the

00:23:01.620 incarnation. Jesus Christ is the light in the life of all men. He makes the meaning of life through the

00:23:06.460 incarnation, the God man. And then even death has meaning through the resurrection, the conquering of

00:23:11.760 death. And this changes all cultures. This happened in space, in time. The Vikings gave up what they

00:23:18.700 gave to what? Follow Christ, right? This is real because there was a point in time where Christians

00:23:24.260 were not reactionary, right? They were storming the gates of hell. On this rock, I'll establish my

00:23:30.280 church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. So I think the lesson that we can learn

00:23:34.440 today as Christians is we should not be reactionary to the culture. Instead, when we're not letting the

00:23:40.080 river of living water flow from us as the church, what we're doing is we're actually bringing a

00:23:47.640 drought to the nations, right? We should be preaching the word of God, the gospel, to free people,

00:23:52.640 the Holy Spirit, to convict the world of sin and righteousness and tell the world, not reactionary,

00:23:57.480 but this is what the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords says. We need to obey him. Psalm 2,

00:24:02.340 kiss the Son, lest you perish in his way. And then acting as Christ is truly King, we can see

00:24:10.560 that theology formed from the Bible proper and the word of God. We wouldn't be reactionary to the

00:24:16.900 culture. Instead, we would understand that the culture and its development is because of Christians

00:24:21.720 and how they speak. The culture is not in charge of the church. It should never be in charge of the

00:24:26.560 church. But we have this weird misunderstanding today that the secular culture at large has some

00:24:32.600 form of power that it doesn't actually have. In Psalm 10, Psalm 110, one, the Lord said to my Lord,

00:24:37.560 sit at my right hand until I make all of your enemies a footstool for your feet. It's echoed in

00:24:41.720 Hebrews, even chapter one. Although we don't see all things in subjection to him, we will one day.

00:24:48.080 And it's happening in this very moment. So in order to not be reactionary, we actually have to believe

00:24:54.380 in Jesus as the fulfillment of all the feasts, right? Jesus as the fulfillment of the law in

00:24:59.660 the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. And we need to express that freedom to the nations as

00:25:05.240 being that river that out floats from the garden of our religion, true religion, undefiled, like it

00:25:10.420 says in James, in order to make that difference in the world. And if we don't do that, the secular

00:25:15.900 culture suffers at large because you got to first love God in order to love neighbor. So I think as the

00:25:22.020 church, we see LGBTQ issues when we're seeing the rise of hostility in the world, the first thing I

00:25:28.200 would want to take a look at is how are we doing? How are we doing? I do believe that the culture is

00:25:33.600 the report card of the church. It's the gospel that changes the hearts and minds of men. So that's,

00:25:38.760 that's one thing to remember. And also I want to plug this too, because Josh Robinson, we interviewed

00:25:42.700 him with the exorcism of Kristen Bellamy. He's recently wrote a book and it's kind of talks about

00:25:46.780 this stuff. It's called re-enchanting time. And it's talking about how Christians had this mindset

00:25:51.500 throughout a millennia, right? Creating holidays, taking dominion, exercising the authority in which

00:25:58.420 Christ had given us in controlling and taking dominion of the things around us. And we've lost

00:26:02.700 that within the last two centuries. I mean, our country itself was founded upon the principles of

00:26:07.940 exercising the freedom of Christ into the world. And we've lost that in the last two centuries,

00:26:12.540 going back even to the restorationist movement and the claims that were made. So I think that

00:26:16.540 stuff's really important. Yeah. And just one last thing too, when it comes to that book,

00:26:21.800 by the way, you should definitely look at it because I think one of the problems with

00:26:25.360 reactionary and some of it just has to do with social media, as much as it's a blessing to be

00:26:30.080 able to connect with your audience, you get, we all get sort of forced and compartmentalized to put on a

00:26:35.020 jersey to find out, you know, whose team are you on? Right. So that, and it's usually overnight.

00:26:40.220 This happened in 2020. I call it the Harambe effect where all of a sudden the thing happened with

00:26:44.280 Harambe. Everyone else became an overnight expert on what zookeepers should and shouldn't do. And

00:26:49.540 there's laughing here. And so whether or not it's Black Lives Matter, whether or not it's Ukraine,

00:26:56.280 whatever the issue is, we're all forced to take these sides and you can, you have to embrace a

00:27:01.040 certain specific narrative. And I think it's also some of the reactionary comes to what is or is not

00:27:08.300 pagan. And I think people regard, before we even address that, as Christians, the most holistic

00:27:15.000 view is to ask, what does, is the earth the Lord's? When you look at, when it talks in scripture,

00:27:20.980 when it talks about the earth, the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof, to what extent does

00:27:25.600 that truly belong to the pagans? And so just because pagans are the ones currently who run social media,

00:27:32.620 who are sort of running, you know, who are just really ruling the Twitterverse with an iron fist

00:27:38.140 up until Elon Musk came along and kind of cleared things up a little bit. And it's kind of interesting

00:27:43.260 to see where that goes. But so if the pagans create something, does that mean we don't, we don't touch

00:27:48.360 it? We just go off of social media? We don't engage in the public sphere? If you have a church,

00:27:53.300 if you have a city that's created by, that's founded by pagans, you don't go there to try and start a

00:27:58.440 business, to try and be salt and light because you don't want to be part of the world.

00:28:01.500 I think Christians really need to ask themselves, what are they truly afraid of? And I think one

00:28:07.720 of the problems too with overcorrections is that obviously we are going through a very strange time

00:28:13.620 right now. It's probably the strangest of times I've seen. And especially a lot of it has to do

00:28:18.500 with the influx of paganism here in the West. We are a post-Christian culture in every sense of the

00:28:24.720 term. And the more you're seeing evil just being portrayed, whether it's in the music industry or

00:28:30.180 whether it's being in movies or the normalization of Satan in many different ways, there's this

00:28:36.840 tendency to look at that and be fearful and be afraid of that. And this huge emphasis on demons,

00:28:44.040 what is or isn't pagan and how somehow this is going to get on you. When in reality, as Christians,

00:28:49.400 we need to look at the victory that Christ did on the cross. When he talks about how one,

00:28:54.620 as far as our own personal identity, ourselves, that our life is hidden with Christ and God,

00:29:00.700 that Christ has already, for those who are Christians, Christ has already canceled the debt

00:29:05.140 and he has nailed, of decrees that were nailed against us that were held to the cross. But then

00:29:10.560 we look at, in regards to demons and paganism, paganism is, it gets us information and source from

00:29:16.400 demonic entities. There's no, that's incontrovertible. But what does, what does scripture say about the

00:29:21.840 relation that Christ, about Christ in relation to principalities and powers and the elemental

00:29:27.060 spirits of the world? It says in Colossians chapter two, that Christ has made a public spectacle

00:29:33.780 over them, has already triumphed over them, has made a mockery over through them. So I look at the

00:29:39.820 culture and obviously I want to be concerned. I have, I have a baby on the way and I'm a, I'm a father,

00:29:45.520 I'm a father right now and a father to be in Andrea, four kids that we want to obviously be

00:29:51.440 discerning, but not also not be fearful because Christ is victorious. And so even the aesthetic

00:29:59.060 of being scared because this or this is pagan, one, it's, it's in fake, it's the, the sources

00:30:05.080 are in fake pseudo history. You don't see any of this paganism as argumentation. It's all sort of

00:30:10.380 source from 19th century pseudo historians. There's nothing based in fact, when it comes to this,

00:30:15.940 but it's also based off of a fear that somehow the unbelieving world can somehow get something onto

00:30:23.860 you from pagan sources when you're already in Christ and your identity is hidden with Christ

00:30:30.920 in God. People are sort of law, they're, they're sort of in a sense looking at, you know, emulating

00:30:36.320 sort of Peter, looking at this storm, being fearful and sinking in fear rather than seeing Jesus who's

00:30:42.680 right in front of them. So rather being afraid of the culture and all the different agates of

00:30:47.680 paganism that are very real and very tangible. And I can understand why people would want to

00:30:51.820 overcorrect and pendulum swing to something like the Hebrew roots. They're not looking at the big

00:30:56.960 picture right in front of them that again, that their life is hidden with Christ in God and that

00:31:00.920 Christ is victorious over even the primary sources of where true paganism comes from. So I think that's

00:31:08.560 one of the major ways to kind of correct something like the Hebrew roots.

00:31:12.940 Yeah. And I think that it's just so gracious of God that he allows us to see our overcorrections

00:31:21.500 and our disobedience in his word. And he always brings us back. I think we do have the tendency

00:31:27.500 to be reactionary. And I was thinking, as you were talking about the different issues that we have in

00:31:31.920 our culture, it's not wrong to build a response to those things. I mean, I certainly have become

00:31:38.360 more solid on issues because I've had to respond and react to them that I just didn't have to think

00:31:44.960 about before. I mean, there was a time that really none of us put a whole lot of thought into gender.

00:31:51.480 Can you switch your gender? Why does it? Why does biology matter more than what you feel? Are there

00:31:56.420 multiple genders? We all knew the answers, of course, but we would have laughed it off. We didn't have to

00:32:00.800 think deeply about that 20 to 25 years ago. My parents weren't worried when I just wanted to

00:32:05.960 wear jeans and a t-shirt when I was four years old. It wasn't some existential crisis that we went

00:32:10.520 through as a family. But now that it is, Christians are kind of forced to respond. So it's not wrong to

00:32:17.720 look at the culture and say, whoa, how should I respond to that? And then go into the word of God and

00:32:23.820 say, okay, thank the Lord that he has given me clarity on this. Now I have an answer because the word of

00:32:29.860 God has already answered this question for me. It is wrong though, to take an equally unbiblical

00:32:36.200 position on the other side of the pendulum, just because you want to be anti-secular. There's a

00:32:42.960 difference between anti-secular and biblical. Absolutely. I could not agree more.

00:32:59.860 So I just want to finish with just specifically the Hebrew Roots Movement, which I agree with you. I

00:33:06.660 think it is as sincere as some of the people may be. I do think it is perhaps an overcorrection. And

00:33:13.080 the biggest concern with me is not just, oh, that you like traditions or you don't like shellfish. Okay,

00:33:17.700 whatever. That's fine. I think that you like to celebrate the feast because you think it's a fun

00:33:23.920 historical thing and Jesus did take part in them. But I do think it has the power to diminish the

00:33:29.000 power of the gospel or in your life, your belief in the power of the gospel and create some kind of

00:33:35.440 man-made religion that we know cannot save. So I just want to finish with a couple of verses that

00:33:42.160 you guys have alluded to a few times. So one is Ephesians 2.13, but now in Christ Jesus,

00:33:51.460 you who once were far off Gentiles have been brought near by the blood of Christ for he himself is our

00:33:57.500 peace who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh, the dividing wall of hostility by

00:34:04.660 abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances that he might create in himself one

00:34:10.320 new man in place of the two. So making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through

00:34:17.700 the cross. So Gentiles don't become Jews, but Gentiles and Jews both become Christians.

00:34:22.820 So we're not, as you said, trading our cultural identity. We are not trading our Jewishness

00:34:30.240 culturally or Gentileness culturally. We are all trading our identity as fleshly people for spiritual

00:34:37.740 people for Christians. And then there's Romans 7.6, but now we are released from the law,

00:34:44.620 having died to that which held us captive so that we serve in the new way of the spirit and not in the

00:34:51.280 old way of the written code, which is so clear. And so is Galatians 3.10. For all who rely on works

00:35:00.380 of the law, again, not just you look to it, you think it's a good idea to abide by some of them, but

00:35:05.140 all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse for it is written, cursed be everyone who does

00:35:12.700 not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Now it is evident that no one is

00:35:18.480 justified before God by the law for the righteous shall live by faith. Christ redeemed us from the

00:35:24.760 curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. And that to me

00:35:31.560 is the verse that really shows that by looking to the law for our salvation in any way, or even our

00:35:37.700 sanctification, looking to the Old Testament law, it diminishes the work on the cross that Jesus did

00:35:43.920 for us by fulfilling the law and freeing us from the yoke that was placed on us by the law. The law

00:35:50.480 is not salvific at all. And that's what I fear. I fear that people aren't experiencing the freedom

00:35:56.120 that is in the gospel and in Christ because they think that they have to abide by laws that are

00:36:01.000 no longer applicable to Christians today.

00:36:06.160 Yeah, definitely. And just what we would do, if you want to understand, we've only really covered

00:36:10.140 the almost the very basic bullet points in a sense, because again, this view is so broad and is,

00:36:16.020 they'll probably in the comment section, you know, you'll have certain people disagreeing on either

00:36:20.520 what we said, or you might even have people, certain Hebrew people even disagreeing with each other.

00:36:25.000 No, I'm the proper representation. No, I am. No, I am. But we would just say we have some content,

00:36:30.600 if you want to understand on a deeper level. We have a good friend of ours, Andrew Schumacher.

00:36:35.460 We've done a couple episodes with him, four episodes altogether, encompassing two series.

00:36:40.220 I think the first one, which is a general overview, the second series goes into specific claims.

00:36:47.280 And then as far as what the different scripture and proof texts that they try and look at in relation

00:36:53.500 to the law, Torah, the gospel, and something really good, because more than likely, again,

00:36:58.200 this is, you can probably, some people will get very passionate and kind of argue about it in

00:37:02.520 internet land. But in reality, most of anyone who has to deal with this are probably talking with

00:37:07.840 a friend in close proximity to them, a friend they truly care for, a family, maybe somebody in a home

00:37:13.260 church, or maybe in a mom's group, where someone all of a sudden, someone come and has these ideas

00:37:19.240 of the feasts and stuff like that. That's where they're going to be really dealing with it.

00:37:22.640 And there's another book just called The Hebrew Roots Movement. And it's an author by the name of

00:37:27.980 Ruben Gomez. He's actually a minister from Spain. And he's given a really good general overview of

00:37:34.740 just sort of answering some of these claims. He kind of goes more in depth on the worldwide church

00:37:39.260 of God, some of what he calls Hebrish, which is sort of the combined mixture of English and Hebrew.

00:37:46.000 And that's where you kind of get those made up terms like Yahshua or all these kind of weird

00:37:49.520 variations of the name of God that are just have really come about by this movement.

00:37:54.060 And again, I would say the book by Josh Robinson called Re-enchanting Time, that kind of gives a

00:38:00.020 good understanding of the nature in which Christians have, where every day belongs to the Lord. And we,

00:38:07.660 and also even the, the ability as Christians to set apart our own holidays. In fact, the general

00:38:14.040 principle of Christians establishing days in glory to God, that's even where Thanksgiving came from,

00:38:21.920 that there was a very Christian nature behind Thanksgiving that we even celebrate today,

00:38:27.060 a day that was commemorated as a day to give Thanksgiving to God. And even as, as now as

00:38:32.700 materialistic as we've gotten now, you know, you refer to it as Turkey Day. We don't really think of

00:38:38.040 it as truly giving Thanksgiving to God for all the provisions that he's given us, even in the

00:38:43.080 strangest of times. So I would say definitely look at those resources and hopefully this would give a

00:38:47.920 very good understanding, especially if any of you have a good friend, somebody that you care about,

00:38:53.340 where you kind of see these and you're not sure of how to address them. We definitely encourage you

00:38:57.160 take a look at those sources.

00:38:58.620 Yes, definitely. Go ahead. Last word.

00:39:01.400 Yeah. Just another source for everybody. Andrew Schumacher, who we interviewed for those

00:39:05.840 Hebrew Roots Movement episodes we did. He actually has a YouTube channel in terms of apologetics,

00:39:10.620 and he talks with these people. It's called The Beginning of Wisdom. That's his YouTube channel.

00:39:15.880 Just want to throw that plug out there because it's really helpful.

00:39:18.420 Yes. Well, thank you guys so much for this insight. Again, I mean, this is a subject like all the

00:39:22.840 subjects we've discussed that could be talked about for hours and hours, but I do hope that it's

00:39:27.520 giving people an understanding. And the goal always is to point back to the gospel,

00:39:31.460 not to ourselves or our own wisdom or anything, but the gospel really does have the answers for

00:39:36.460 all the things that we're discussing. So thank you guys so much. Recommend y'all's podcast,

00:39:41.400 The Coltish Podcast. Thanks for taking the time to come on.

00:39:46.380 Absolutely. Thanks for having us on, Ellie.

00:39:47.740 Hey, Related Bells and Related Bros. If you could please leave us a five-star review wherever you

00:39:57.880 listen to Relatable, that would mean so much to us, and it really does help the show. Also,

00:40:03.460 if you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel, please do. Thanks.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 31, 2023

Ep 866 ｜ Why Christians Don't Need Jewish Traditions ｜ Guests： Jeremiah Roberts & Andrew Soncrant of 'Cultish' (Part Two)

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