Jewish Roots

Restoring the Jewishness of the Gospel!

Yeshua (Jesus) movement was very much a form of Judaism in its origins. Yeshua was a Jew, and all the earliest followers of Yeshua were Jews, Jews who continued to feel that following the law (the Torah) was humanity’s response to God’s covenant with his people. Paul, the Jewish Pharisee, was a bit of an exception in not requiring that gentiles follow certain aspects of the Jewish law, especially circumcision and food laws, in order to participate. Still Paul was very much a Jew and did not object to Jewish followers of Jesus following the law and, in some respects, expected gentiles to follow other aspects of the law beyond those that created a social or status distinction.

Yeshua is presented in the Gospels as the ultimate fulfillment of the Jewish expectation, as the son of David, the new Moses, and as the coming prophet. Yeshua’s followers were to follow the law in a way that exceded the Pharisees. Yeshua quoted the law of Moses and interpreting it in a way that strongly affirms the original intention of the laws. These are not replacements for the law of Moses, but rather a radicalization of the reason why those laws were given by God.