Finding Home: A Jesus Follower's Thirty-Year Journey to Judaism

By J.S. Clark

For thirty years, I trusted the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus for my eternal salvation and the major tenets that went with it. I only had one problem. Raised with an iron-clad certainty in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures, I had to take them seriously, studying as if they were the words of eternal life.

But the more I studied, the more they seemed not to say what I had been taught. Why were there so many commands, as if God expected obedience, when the preacher said it was all about what Jesus did? How could two-thirds of the Bible speak clear praise of the Law, while the Church spoke contempt—wasn’t it given by the same God who became man? Why did the Old Testament feel like it contained the fullness of human emotion and experience—full of rich characters like Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and David—but the New Testament felt like a series of classroom lectures? Why did Jesus say to keep the Law and tell his disciples to stay in Israel, while Paul seemed to dismiss the Law and spent his energy making Gentile converts outside of Israel? For that matter, how did Paul—never a part of Jesus earthly ministry—become the great chief apostle, over the Twelve who were publicly recognized as Jesus hand-picked emissaries? And how did their legacy become the Catholic and Orthodox churches, yet all the churches that I sat in in doubted those churches—from whom they inherited the New Testament—were even true believers?

Over the course of thirty-years, from my AWANA childhood to advocating this religion as an adult in blogs and books and as a home-church leader, the questions lead me to turn and embrace the life which the followers of Jesus had once called home: Judaism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.S. Clark
• Release date: Aug 28, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215186411

J.S. Clark

J.S. Clark lives in southern Ohio with his wife, Alisa and their children, assorted, adopted cats, dogs, and other living paraphernalia. Besides writing, he is developing a heirloom/real world organic market garden that serves the Cincinnati area.All the while, he desires to cultivate connections and community with others, and talk Torah, homesteading, writing, and a plethora of other things.

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Finding Home:

A Jesus Follower’s Thirty-Year Journey to Judaism

By J.S. Clark

Smashwords Retitled Edition

Copyright 2023 J.S. Clark, Smashwords Retitled Edition

Copyright 2021 J.S. Clark, original Smashwords Edition

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An Only Human Book

This book and its cover were created, edited, and completed—to the best of the author’s knowledge—without AI assistance at any stage. J.S. Clark is commited to the ideal that art is a process and a result meant for the betterment of the human soul, and the use of AI short-circuits that process and mars that result (regardless of whether the human can detect its employment). The world needs more artists, not merely more art.

For Alisa and our children. And our children’s children. And our children’s children’s children.

And to the ones who never seem to be able to take the easy, pat answers, however much they wish they could.

Acknowledgments

This work could never have been done without the help of HaShem and His many wonderful servants that have sojourned in my life, both during the years that made up the contents of this book and the years writing this book.

I thank my beloved parents, Kenneth and Rita Clark who laid my foundation with the reverence of God’s word, provided for my material needs, and gave me many memories that come back when I tell my children stories of when I was a boy. It was your prayers, instruction, and love that God used to train me into the man I am today.

I thank my sister Felise and brothers Daniel, Micah, and Joseph, you are always in my heart, and it never feels like coming home without the four of you. If I could go back and live my years over, I would spend more time with each of you and cherish each of you more.

I thank my old friends, Mike and Melessa, Carl and Donna, Chris and Nikki, Jack and Marian, for being my companions, peers, accountability, and mentors in my most difficult years and helping me to pursue hard questions without writing me off. I’m still open to the idea of us all living in the same village—or a city—if we must, but on the outskirts.

I thank my family through Alisa, George (of blessed memory) and Mary, Gene, Scott and Dottie, Sam and Skyler, Jeff (of blessed memory) and Sunny, Tevin and Shane for welcoming me into your family and homes, sharing Alisa with me, and for all the memories and support that you have invested in our life.

I thank my new friends, too many to list and fearful of leaving any out, but including those of Sinking Springs, Beasley Fork, Kentucky, the Amish and Mennonite communities of Hillsboro and West Union, Ohio, Cincinnatians, New York, including those I know only by internet from Tenak Talk and Noahide Online Gathering, and others. You have all helped me through unorthodox questions and orthodox questions and been emotional and amicable support in times of merrymaking as well as sorrow. May you all enjoy peace and blessing from HaShem.

Above all other persons, I must thank my sons and daughter. You are such sources of joy and hope and comfort to me. I love to watch you grow and to see each of your souls develop. I am also grateful for your working with the family on our homestead. Without your help, I don’t know that I would have any time for studying and writing. You make me a glad and proud father! All I want is for you to know HaShem, be happy, and have beautiful families full of shalom and emuna!

Above the above is my wife, Alisa. You are my soulmate and my help-mate. When I forget, you remember. When I am hot under the collar, you are cool water. You push me to become a better man. You instruct our children in kindness, in love of creation, in the refining things of life. Your wisdom tempers me.

Above all, beyond all praises that can be uttered, I thank HaShem for allowing me to complete this work, for providing for all my needs, for opening my eyes to wondrous things in His Torah, and granting me emuna.

Table of Contents

I Didn’t See the Train Coming

Hopscotch Church

Post-Evangelical: Pre-Messianic

From Jack to Jews

Jews will be Jews

Prodigal

Messianic or Jesus Follower?

The Catholics, the Questions, and the Camp Fire

Eusebius

Kosher Jesus, Unkosher Paul

Dangerous Jews

Wasn’t Yeshua Against Tradition?

The Milk Run and the Mohel

The Gentile Mission?

Holes in the Holy

Last Hurdles and the Sign of Yonah

A Theory of Origin

The Morning After the Mourning

The Rainbow Road

But What If That Isn’t Enough?

The End?

Appendix: Analysis of the Gospel of Yeshu

About J.S. Clark

Further Notes

I Didn’t See the Train Coming

In 2010, writing this book would never have entered my mind. In 2017, I would have contemplated the subject, but denied I would ever pen my current position. I would have pointed to a recently completed draft attesting to the deity of Yeshua as HaMashiach (Jesus as the Messiah), and to another on the Gospel according to Yeshua (which would have been a solid and mind-blowing work, if I do say so, myself).

Yet in the last days of 5778, in the week leading to Rosh HaShanah 5779 (the Jewish Civil New Year falling on September 9, 2018), I concluded that a first century Jewish rabbi known as Yeshua was not the Mashiach. It was not an easy decision after thirty or so years of identifying as a Jesus follower, twenty-four of which I would describe as serious, active, engaged belief. It was not easy, but it was merely surrendering to the gravity of the disqualifying argument.

I am not writing this memoir to attack anyone into changing their faith. If you are happily a Jesus follower, be happy in serving the Creator to the best of your knowledge and ability. If you are happily Messianic, Messianic Jewish, Hebrew Roots, or Yeshua-Other, then happily be the best according to your understanding. But maybe you’re facing questions and do not know what to do with them? Sometimes, it is just helpful to have someone else tell you that they have had the same, and to see how they navigated it—even if ultimately, you choose another path.

You are not a wicked person because you have questions about Yeshua that no one else seems to voice. Be realistic. Do you think someone in a crowd of Jesus followers or Messianics is going to openly acknowledge to their own community, Yeah, I’m not sure this is true? No one wants to be the doubter. You risk the respect, even the fundamental relationship with those closest to you when you tell them you are not sure about the faith that (until that moment) defined your mutual relationship. Suddenly, you wouldn’t be a ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ in the faith, but an outsider, someone who needs to be converted or perhaps a weak member who needs to be admonished, quarantined, shunned or excommunicated, but certainly not one of the faithful, qualified to engage in intimate, deep discussions of faith. All of your thoughts can in an instant be invalidated by your conclusion. All of your good deeds can be instantly erased or turned into fakery, a show of godliness—and they must be!

Or else how could you have reached a conclusion contrary to your once-shared conviction?

In this memoir, I trace the road of questions that lead me to where I stand. I have tried to tell it as fairly as I can from the native perspective of those years and moments, but in certain wrestlings, present day has undoubtedly bled into earlier memory. I will try to keep those contemporary thoughts confined to footnotes. I hope reading this will help you find clarity in your own questions, and I pray bring you closer to the God of Avraham, Yitzhak, and Ya’akov.

Jesus Follower

Hopscotch Church

God sent me to Earth, Alaska in October 1981, late on a Sunday, to Ken and Rita Clark, the most wonderful parents I have ever had. Thereafter, the Air Force ordered my Dad, a KC-135 tanker pilot, to a new duty station at Fairchild Air Force Base just outside of Spokane. We moved to Washington before I learned how to walk. Actually, I am told I learned to walk in an RV going down to these contiguous United States. Not surprisingly, all I remember of Alaska is the colors brown (probably wall paneling) and white (undoubtedly snow) and a vague sense of absolutely flat carpet that military housing may have been fond of in the 70’s and 80’s.

I include these details because every memoir is about context. But hopefully, I will sift through to details more relevant than carpet. Those who know me, now roll their eyes. I have a hopelessly broad sense of relevant context.

Growing up, I have heard stories that imply we weren’t always Jesus followers, but I don’t remember those times. Certainly, there were times of increased practice and times of less enthusiasm, but a time without, I do not recall. One of my earliest memories involves a home-church with the Frasie family. I recall very little except that I once went in during prayer time and shouted, My Mom made cinnamon rolls and yours didn’t!

I’m still embarrassed by that, but I was probably five, so I think I should get a break. Besides, God paid me back just a few weeks ago when my own daughter did almost this exact thing.

Speaking of getting a break, I also broke my leg there, when someone elbowed me off a table. There was some screaming, but I got a stuffed Koala bear out of the deal, and a guilt card to throw at my brother—he somehow feels responsible. Bro, really, I don’t recall any blame, but I absolve you anyway, in writing.

Shortly, after, we stopped attending. Comments have implied my leg might have precipitated the break. Get it? Break! But later episodes make me think there was more to it than a fractured bone.

A Dark Night Between Heaven and Hell

The evangelical might question, Yes, you grew up in a Believing home, but did you ever make a personal commitment to Jesus?

I never really had a good answer to that. By good, I mean spectacular. I always dreaded the question because I would hear others give these stories that end with clouds rolling back and angelic singing. As for me? I recall being in my parents’ basement in a sleeping bag. For some reason, we kids liked to sleep in strange places. We would take sleeping bags out onto the back porch, and try to avoid being eaten by mosquitoes by closing the tops of our bags so that we couldn’t breathe, meanwhile trying to wrangle cats to sleep in our bags only to kick them out when they’d start kneading us with their claws.

So, I was trying to sleep in the basement, I assume my brother Daniel would have been nearby, perhaps Dad, too. But it was in the dark of the night and they were both asleep. I had been taught about hell, and that it was a terrible place, and that God could save me. I do not recall, my specific words, but I remember being afraid, and telling God I didn’t want to go there.

A fundamentalist might question, if I actually accepted Jesus’ completed, efficacious, atoning work on the Cross for my personal sins? Or if I prayed specifically to Jesus at all? I can’t answer that, but really, I was seven or so. If the gracious God of the New Testament can’t save a seven-year-old, afraid in the dark, who doesn’t know the proper prayer and seven or eleven points of doctrine to articulate, then you need to strike the term childlike faith from your vocabulary.

There weren’t any fireworks and my life didn’t change dramatically, but I did go to sleep. And whether, you’re satisfied with that account or not, I have remembered it as a distinct moment in time¹.

Monroe Park Gospel Chapel

Sometime after—there may have been other church gatherings that I forgot or can’t place in time—we ended up in a chapel that I recall vividly. Tall, churchly windows. Hardwood floors. Old pews screwed into place. A little enclosed library in the corner of the sanctuary.

It was the first place that I recall a sustained memory, more than a blip in my internal narrative. There were church plays and cookies—which I sometimes snuck from the fridge on the way to the bathroom. There were many other details. Most notably, one time when I was chosen to be in an Advent play. My role was to sit on a teenager’s lap and be told the story in the character of a little boy. Not a hard gig, except that I had a little boy’s crush on the thirteen or fourteen-year-old whose lap I was supposed to be sitting on.

Yes, I liked girls from a young age. I guess God had to get started early before I could meet my wife two decades later.

Surviving that drama (get it?), my family spent several years there, probably until I was ten or so. Several VBS’s (Vacation Bible Schools) passed, but eventually we left. I can’t say I was too attached, probably because the kids my age never seemed to stick around. Yet the exit left a mark. One of those firsts, when you actually realize something has happened. An event.

Rogue Years

Dad said we left because the Gospel Chapel was not really dedicated to spreading the Gospel. This seems to have been a period when Dad was becoming more intentionally spiritual. It would have been his mid-to-late forties, and I think he was getting close to retiring from the Air Force. Perhaps, he was asking, Now, what’s my life about?

It seems around the same time, that he started getting into creation evidences, collecting information from scientists that are followers of Jesus and non-believing scientists that pointed to a relatively young 6,000-year-age for the Earth, a literal Genesis reading, and debunking evolutionary theory. Eventually, he started a ministry called Creation Outreach with his friend Jim and traveled about the region, speaking in churches on the evidences. The rest of the family would help. I recall liking to run the slide projector, keeping it focused, and setting up the book table. I found special joy in making sure the books were evenly spaced and squared to each other.

At one point, we combined a family motor home adventure with filming footage for a video Dad was producing. The video didn’t turn out, but the trip gave lots of great memories. Probably because of that, I love motor homes despite the rational dread of maintenance and depreciation. We went south, all the way to Texas where little ants invaded the vehicle, biting us as we slept, then came back north, wishing briefly to move to Minnesota and loving the cold blue-green of Glacier National Park.

That period lasted for a couple years, staying between churches for most of that time. We did, however, keep songbooks at home so we could have church as a family. Consistently, Mom would read scripture after meals, and Dad would often give some lesson or reflection after dinner. Myself and my two oldest siblings—or at least me and my older brother by this time—attended the children’s religious education program, AWANA (Approved Workman Are Not Ashamed). My first memory of this program, as a Sparky (I was too old for Cubbie) was at a Baptist church that we did not attend, and I can’t place where this was in Spokane, but I feel it was near Garland St., and it had distinct structural style that as an adult I would recognize as German, white plastered walls with framework of brown beams.

On the other hand, our being between churches was not, strictly speaking, an issue of our busy ministry schedule. I did not understand at the time, but with age, I have noticed when Jesus followers become engaged in their faith, they start caring about doctrine. That is not bad, but it often leads to separating from people believed to be in error. And the more you separate over error, the more errors you find to separate over.

It also marked the beginning of a period of family strife. The details aren’t necessary, but there was turmoil that marked the years. And it is possible that strife in the home was also a partial cause of the stalling between churches and the winding down of active ministry in the family.

Valley Fourth Memorial

The strife in the home affected me more than I knew for many years. When we finally landed in a new, established church, I felt out of place. I didn’t know anyone, and family life left me feeling uninitiated. By that I mean, somewhere along the line I felt like I had fallen through the cracks. We homeschooled, and I didn’t really know where I was in my school ‘career’. I didn’t have a sense of what I was supposed to be doing at my age and felt unprepared for my own peers.

So for a while, I was in the wrong age group at this new church. I didn’t mind, but the teachers did, and eventually they told me I had to go get with the right age group. Unwilling to face this new challenge, I discovered one of the advantages of the new church. It was so large that one could simply skip class and there was no one to tell you that you weren’t doing what you were supposed to do. And more importantly, no one to tell your parents. I floundered my way through that period, but the hand of God was with me, because I can see easily how my faith was headed for shipwreck and yet never wholly evaporated.

We were not at Valley Fourth for long. Once again, there was something wrong with their doctrine and we left. Just to be clear, these churches didn’t seem to be saying anything that would be considered outside of the mainstream. I never heard a disagreement about salvation or grace vs. works, etc. As far as I can tell, these churches agreed on the major points, but the objections were to peripheral points of doctrine.

Medical Lake Community Church

By the time we reached this church, I was well-floundered. I was not rejecting Jesus; I just didn’t feel attached or motivated by the religion (not that this kept me from getting baptized there). My baptism is probably a good illustration of my feelings. Dad had begun to impress upon myself and my older brother that we ought to be baptized, as we both professed to be Jesus followers. I agreed, in theory, but the idea of the public spectacle filled me with dread. I undertook the process, almost one-hundred percent to fulfill my Dad’s desire for us. When the three of us sat down with Pastor Lewis, he asked my brother if he was ready to serve Jesus. My brother affirmed, readily. When it came my turn, I remember my head bobbing, yes, but in my mind the question sounded like, Are you ready to become a missionary in a foreign land? And as my head bobbed yes, my mouth opened, No.

Even as I said it, I had little idea why I had. I knew and meant the correct answer, yes. I would never have sat there with my brother, pastor, and Dad if I’d planned for the word ‘No’ to come out of my mouth! In that immediate moment, I could only think that I was so awkwardly nervous that the wrong word came out. (Now, I wonder if my response wasn’t prophetic?) I must have clarified my awkward answer because the Pastor said he appreciated my honesty, and we talked a little more, he gave me another run at the question, and I must have said yes on the second try because I ended up getting baptized with my brother.

To those who say, I never really believed, you can fairly claim a point of evidence. But for myself, I maintain that I did and was trying to walk in obediance, however awkwardly, yet I admit on an emotional level, I didn’t feel engaged with Church. This wasn’t a conscious evaluation at the time, but looking back I was just drifting. I only happened to be in the same current as the rest of my family.

In secret, I had begun to be exposed to the kinds of things you could find on late night cable TV or that the internet suddenly made available to many a young man, my follower of Jesus conscience slowly being silenced. There is no need for a salacious telling; it is enough to know that darkness was getting into my mind, and I did not have the rudder to stay away. I had heard the Gospel from my parents, in Bible camps from Montana to Canada, and sometime around the age of seven, I had asked God to save me in the dark of night, afraid of going to hell. I had attended AWANA, where I memorized an internal arsenal of Gospel verses.

Point being, I knew Jesus had died for my sins on the Cross and rose again the third day, and that I was forgiven for my sins, yet none of that was providing a defense against sin that had attached to my soul. This was my condition as I got into Medical Lake Community Church, but God was not done with me. I was guided into the right age group this time, though I would have chosen to avoid it. And it was not long before I met Jack.

We were studying the Book of Matthew, but Jack’s study was like none that I had sat in before. He did not teach from a spiral-bound lesson book. He did not ask us to fill in blanks made for only one pre-supplied answer. His teaching method would be along the lines of, Put your finger here, but keep a finger over here, here, and here. Then he would go crazy on a whiteboard drawing circles and lines and diagrams, all the while asking questions. Ok, what does so-and-so mean by ___? He kept reinforcing this idea of asking: who is this written to? Why was it written? What is the subject that he has been talking about? And rather than just supplying answers, he would coax us to work it out and use scripture to define scripture. Maybe that was normal for other kids’ high school classes, but it was nothing like what I had experienced anywhere else.

The theme that kept coming up in Matthew, and every other lesson plan of Jack’s, was that God actually cared how you lived. I had never thought about this. I had been in churches for six or seven years now, and no one had ever raised the notion that there was even a question of what God expected of me. I had these two separate, unrelated truths in tension, without even knowing it. On the one hand, God was all about dying on a cross and forgiving sin, and on the other, He had a book full of instructions on how to live.

The Churches I had been in never gave me the impression that how I lived actually mattered. The lessons might have been like be a nice a person, but there was no weight behind it. I am not saying they did not teach the ten commandments, but it just never seemed to matter. Maybe, God wanted you to be good, but if not, Oh, well. You’re either saved, and your sins don’t really matter, or you’re not saved and your goodness doesn’t matter.

Jack showed scriptures that said, we would be judged for our words and deeds (Matt. 12:36-37, 1 Cor. 3:11-15). He pointed out that all scripture was given to those who have the Spirit to discern it (1 Cor. 2:14), thus the lessons of Jesus’ parables were for believers. It could even be seen in that the sheep who goes astray is a sheep that belongs to the master, not to another (Matt. 18:12). The parable of the wedding guest without proper clothes is an invited friend, not one of the many who did not even show up, nor of the rejected guests (Matt. 22:12). The parable of the ten virgins is not about ten women, five of whom turn out to be whores. The five without oil who were left outside were invited virgins, too (Matt. 25:1). The parable of the sheep and goats uses two types of clean animals, worthy for sacrifice, not pigs and sheep (Matt. 25:32). In the parable of the sower, three of four types of soil do receive the word of the Gospel. In his interpretation, Jesus said one of the groups that was ultimately unfruitful, had actually believed for a time (Luke 8:13)! Luke 12:48 concludes a parable about an unfaithful servant, not someone else’s servant who never knew this master. It is the servant of the master who, being unfaithful, receives more or less stripes based upon how much he knew and did not do. All of these parables and many other teachings in the New Testament were directed at believers who needed to obey, not unbelievers who were utterly ignorant. Jack’s overall teaching was that Jesus followers who were just playing the game, would be scrubbing toilets in the Kingdom. There was not only a division between saved and unsaved, but a difference of position of the saved within the new kingdom determined by faithfulness.

That part was probably the part that was so new: obedience and disobedience had consequences in Heaven. We were not going to get there and everyone be on the same level. This had direct impact on me. There I was living a double-life, going to church, but seeking out things to pollute my mind when elsewhere. I was playing the game, and until then, I did not even know there was a game.

At first, I will admit, there was that jolt of fear. And why shouldn’t there have been? I was living in sin! But looking back there was something else. What most Jesus followers do not seem to be plagued by, or will not admit to it, is that behind the talk of unmerited grace, behind the Jesus did it all on the Cross, behind the when God sees you, He only sees Jesus’ righteousness, and behind the there’s nothing you can do to add to what Jesus did, is the insidious teaching that what you do does not really matter. If God really sees Jesus instead of you, then He really can’t see you do something wrong. Neither can He see you do what is right. Essentially, nothing you do makes a lick of difference. All you are is a spectator in this game called faith. Your job is just to buy a ticket with a prayer, go sit in the stands, and cheer everything God is doing. Your only real purpose in life is to sing songs in church, pray silent prayers when you eat out, and maybe hand out a track. But even those things do not matter because God is the one who calls the soul. If you are a Calvinist follower of Jesus, then even your choice to believe is God’s will overriding yours.

Yeah, God pretty much doesn’t need you. In fact, we sing songs about what wretches even the best of us are. It seems God doesn’t really like any of us, but only has irrational love for completely worthless humans.

What Jack was saying was that what we did mattered, therefore we mattered. I could not put words to this at the time; fear of judgment was the most prominent feature of my belief. But I see now, that behind the fear of judgment for my sins as a believer was the idea that there were things I was meant to do.

Grace and Works

Now, many Jesus followers will decide at this point that my turnaround was actually a turn in the wrong direction. To them, whatever follows from here is a journey beginning on the wrong foot. While my present self, does not rely on Yeshua (Jesus) being the Mashiach, and therefore, I do not put infallible, divine stock in what the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) has to say, I did believe once, so I shall try to recall the arguments as I would have made them back in the day. However, these will be brief visitations on the subjects. Exhaustive back and forth apologetics on Church doctrine is beyond the scope of what I am doing here.

The main shift in this age of Jesse was the idea that Jesus followers would still be judged for sin and righteousness, after becoming Jesus followers. How can this be, says the Evangelical follower of Jesus? Aren’t we forgiven for all of past, present, and future sins? How can some Jesus followers be more forgiven than others?

Actually, the Bible never says Jesus followers are forgiven for future sins. Romans 3:25 says, the blood of Jesus was a propitiation for sins that are past. 2 Peter 1:9 says that the one who lacks things like godliness, brotherly love, patience has forgotten that he was purged of old sins. In fact, if forgiveness was once forever, then why would 1 John 1:9 talk about confessing sins in order to be forgiven? Hasn’t God already forgiven those sins?

In contrast, Jesus told parables about unfaithful servants, fruitless trees, and unprepared virgins who suffer disgrace and loss of reward or even beatings because of what they failed to do. Jesus followers argue some of these are talking about non-Jesus followers, but as we saw, Jesus is preaching to his disciples, and telling parables about his servants being disgraced, foolish virgins, rejected clean animals, his vineyard being unfruitful.

And what of Jesus’ warnings that unforgiveness leads to being unforgiven (Matt. 5:7, Luke 6:37)? What of the warning that for every idle word men will give account (Matt. 12:36)? Why would he be warning his disciples—the saved—that they could lack forgiveness? They do not need to know it because they are supposedly forgiven, and the unbeliever does not need to know because he is not spiritually discerned to understand, nor is Jesus even speaking to them (Matt. 18). Some Jesus followers will admit the coming judgment, but say that Jesus’s blood exempts them from the verdict of guilt. Yet, why does Paul say in 1 Cor. 3:11-15, not only that a man could build on the foundation of Jesus, but that a man’s construction will be tried by fire? Not only does he teach that something can be added to Jesus’s work, but that it was possible to build something worthless, and that that person would " . . . suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved by fire . . . ²"

More evidence could be recalled, but in short it was clear to me that there was going to be a difference of position and reward among those who were saved (2 Tim. 2:12, Matt. 19:28-29, Rm. 8:17). Understanding that brought to a close my tour in evangelical Protestantism.

Post-Evangelical: Pre-Messianic

We stayed longer at Medical Lake Community Church, in my recollection, than any of the other churches, four years or so. I was baptized there. I sat under two pastors whom I knew by name. I made friends there that I still have. I went on Youth Group retreats. We went repelling down rock faces, camped out under the stars, and had insomniacs (all-nighters) where we studied through whole epistles, with breaks to play Goldeneye on N64.

And I point out, again, that none of the teachings from that pulpit stood out as aberrant, then or looking back. On the other hand, I drifted into this church with my family, and aside from Jack’s classes, I was not really paying attention to what the teachers and elders were saying. I admit this in full disclosure, knowing it will make it sound like I was falling into a cult. To this day, I have friends or family who think this. What can I say to convince you otherwise? I would ask a counter question: how was it that I had been in churches that long, and until then no one had gotten me to positively engage in the faith, on a deep personal level?

Cult or not, Jack’s teaching did begin to show itself as out of step with MLCC, at least that much registered. Later when he was gone, other teachers took turns with myself and the other former students, showing that Jack’s instruction was indeed greater in depth and challenge; the replacement studies were generally fill-in the blank type studies, very on-the-rails. It seemed Jack was the only teacher who thought high-schoolers capable of verse by verse hermeneutics.

I am not trying to disparage Medical Lake, but to demonstrate that I was not in a cultish/fringe church. I was in an environment that taught the normal Protestant-evangelical idea of once-saved-always-saved, grace through faith, forgiven-once-for-all, etc, and that environment was failing to make a more compelling case than an individual teaching Biblical obediance.

The conflict in teachings was soon mirrored by drama in the Church. I do not claim to know the definitive story, but eventually, Jack had to leave. While my opinions about what actually took place (allegations against church leadership) have moderated, it did indel in me the sense that for many Jesus followers grace displaced even godly fear.

Rosh HaShanah

Jack’s last lesson, as I recall, before his abrupt exit was on the subject of Rosh HaShanah. I do not remember what book we were studying. Perhaps, we had gone topical? But Rosh HaShanah was the immediate subject. This is the beginning of the civil year on the Hebrew calendar. It is also known in some Messianic circles as Yom Teruah (the day of the shofar blast), and occurs on the seventh month of the Hebrew religious calendar. This holy day is not merely a Jewish thing, but is actually a commanded Biblical feast from Leviticus 23. Why should this be a subject in a church in a small town near Spokane? I shrug, but considering how many other paths my life could have taken, I see in this God’s guiding hand.

The lesson touched on things like Jewish idioms. In Matthew 24:36, Jesus talked about returning on a day that no man knows. This was always held up as Jesus saying that he could come back at any time. However, the day no man knows is not just a way of describing any day. The Hebrew calendar month begins with the new moon. The lunar month has roughly 29.5 days in it, meaning some months would be twenty-nine solar days, and others, thirty. And while calculations could be and were done to figure out how long a month would be, the first day of a month was treated like a mystery, called: the day that no man knows.

Naturally, there would be twelve days that ‘no man knows’ in the Hebrew year, but there is only one feast that God instituted back in Leviticus 23 that falls on such a day: Rosh HaShanah. This becomes amazing when you note day’s theme of blowing the shofar (ram’s horn), which is why the average churchgoer might know it as the Feast of Trumpets.

That should give any follower of Jesus chills, when they remember some key verses like Joel 2:1-15, "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion . . . for the day of the LORD comes . . . Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly." The Feast of Trumpets is a memorial, according to Leviticus 23:24, but the text does not say what it is a memorial of. Numbers 10:9-10 says the trumpet calls God to remember and help in the day of battle, and then right after that tells them to also blow the trumpets on feast days and solemn days. It is easy to see why the rabbis would associate the Feast of Trumpets with the Day of the LORD.

And the same tradition continues in the New Testament. Speaking of the son of man’s coming, Jesus says in Matthew 24:31, "And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect . . . Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:52, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump . . . And 1 Thessalonians 4:16, For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and the trump of God . . . As if hinting at this, Revelation 1:10 reports, I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as a trumpet."

Adding together the idiom and the association of trumpet blasts to the coming of Jesus and the Day of the Lord, my mind was blown. This was so cool! How awesome was it that God had hidden clues to the second coming of Jesus in the ancient feasts since Moses’ time? This should have been no surprise.

I am not sure when it occurred, but a seed of thought was also planted there. I had been in church for eight years by then, and I had never heard a teaching on Rosh HaShanah, or any delving into what this trumpeting could signify. I had heard many teachings alluding to the day that no man knows, yet never one referencing traditional Jewish understanding. How had I been in church for this long, and never heard this?

Messianic

From Jack to Jews

The timing of Jack’s exodus sounds like a political thriller, but immediately or shortly after Jack taught that lesson on a Jewish holiday, he was gone. His sudden disappearance was probably related more to questions he had about leadership behavior rather than anything he said in that particular lesson. But anyway—poof—he was gone.

The Church explained to the youth group—without explaining—what had happened and then eventually assigned us a new teacher. This was when some of us began to see that Jack really had treated us more like adults, expecting us to pay attention and to engage the scriptures.

Yet, reading this, someone might think I am glorifying one side and demonizing the other. In the aftermath, for my part, I did become hot-headed, too sure of myself and my understanding of what had gone down, arrogant, belligerent. I acted quite the fool. Not to say, there were not real issues that provoked me, but I make no claim that I responded rightly, and I am more sympathetic to why the Church may have responded the way it did.

Wisdom of the Law

Jack’s last lesson left us open to small degrees of Jewish thought. Honestly, small. We remained very New Testament centered, and maintained that the law was not binding, but an intellectual, religious curiosity.

I started studying—in a shallow manner—things like not eating pork and about the Sabbath. That seems odd looking back, but also prophetic. In my Messianic experience, it seems to be those two things that reel people in. Why do Jesus followers worship on Sunday when all God’s people kept the seventh day? And why do we eat pork when Jesus never would have? It is curious that these two items should be such a big deal. It’s as if the only think Moses taught was not to eat pigs and to keep Sabbath.

Yep. Five books to mention only those things.

Oh, and stone people. Stone lots of people.

For minor offenses. Often as possible.

Anyway, in this curiosity about the Law of Moses, I found out from a medical perspective that eating pork increases your chances of gout, a condition where uric acid crystallizes in the joints. Interestingly, this same trend occurs when eating shellfish. Both of these were animals that Israel had been forbidden to eat by God. Again, I was shocked. You mean there are real world, present day health benefits to eating a diet that God had prescribed to the religiously primitive Israelites?

Looking at the Sabbath, I knew from an early age that Sunday was not the Sabbath. My parents had never claimed they were the same thing, and anyone who could count to seven on a calendar could figure out which is the Sabbath. Plus, if Jesus rose on Sunday and it was the first day, then it could not also be the seventh. But what I now found interesting was that the body and mind, both benefited from a one-in-seven day of rest. I recently heard a famous radio preacher do a full program on the need for families to have a day of rest. All the while the Church insists that the Sabbath is done away with.

I was compelled to the scandalous conclusion that God had secretly hidden wisdom in the law . . . in plain sight. It was around this time that I began to call the law by its Hebrew name, Torah. Law is not the worst translation, and it is certainly included in the concept of Torah, but law carries a negative connotation of unflinching, mechanical, at times politically weaponized, justice. Torah is broader, meaning instruction, something that teaches you what is what, especially instruction that came down from above.

Yes, this Torah had wisdom. I had little trouble admitting this, yet I kept telling myself and others, But we don’t have to do it. Think about the insanity: I think this is wisdom, but I don’t have to do it. How brain damaged was I to object to the obligation of wisdom? To advocate the right to be stupid?

I actually made this case, when a Torah-keeping young lady, Leigh, came to visit our church. On a side note, it has amazed me how I was about sixteen at this point and had never heard a positive perspective on the Torah, and suddenly I had Jack and Leigh bringing Torah-friendly messages out of nowhere. So Leigh shows up, and I paradoxically welcome what she has to say about keeping Sabbath and Torah in general, but at the same time insist on the point that, we don’t have to do it.

This remained my perspective for the year and a half or so, after Jack left. All the while, the Church with my parents tried to alienate the youth group from the infatuation with obedience to God. Looking back on your youth can be hilarious. When most parents and church communities are worried about their kids doing drugs and having sex, here, ours were concerned about our excessive concern that obedience might affect heavenly reward. Imagine how they would have totally freaked out if they aware some of us were falling in with the unsavory crowd of kosher and Sabbath keepers.

Honor thy Father and thy Mother

The problem with youth is that you are so blind that you do not know you are blind. When you are in the thick of it, you think that you know everything and that anyone older than you just doesn’t get it. And even when you read a statement like that, it often