Obligation

Shabbat shalom, everyone. Thanks for joining us this afternoon. Welcome to our guests, whether this is your first time or your second. Just remember after the 3rd time, you’re not a guest anymore, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Today I’m going to talk about obligation. We could just as easily call it “duty” or “responsibility.” We have obligations to our parents, our siblings, our children. We have obligations to our local fellowship community.

There are quite a few obligations in Scripture. To be fair, we could just as easily say that there are as many obligations as they are commandments. Some of these are called “negative” commandments. That simply means, they are “thou shalt not” commandments. We are obligated to refrain from doing the things which these commandments prohibit. For example, I am obligated to not steal Jeff’s wallet. I am obligated to not be at work today, since it’s Shabbat.

There are also positive commandments, and these carry obligations as well. Can anyone name a positive commandment, something we are commanded and therefore obligated to do, even today?

How about this one:

You must fear ADONAI your God, and swear by His Name. (Deut. 6:13, TLV)

This is a commandment, and therefore we are obligated to obey. We are commanded to fear Adonai. We are to worship Him alone. These are things which we as believers are obligated to do.

But there are two specific obligations that I have in mind to discuss. The reasons for these two is they are related – though that may not be apparent at first – and they are both directly applicable to our lives today. We will draw the first of these from two passages. The first is Deut. 6:6-7. You should still be in Deut. 6 if you turned there a moment ago. So now we’ll read verses 6-7.

6These words, which I am commanding you today, are to be on your heart. 7You are to teach them diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up.

6These words, which I am commanding you today, are to be on your heart. 7You are to teach them diligently to your children, and speak of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. (Deut. 6:6-7)

The next verse for reference is found in 1 Timothy 5 verse 8. Let’s turn there and read.

The context here is about honoring those serving in the community, and about caring for those that need assistance. Widows are listed as a specific example of a class of people – in particular women – who needed and deserved assistance. Paul gives guidelines on when and how to do this in their culture. Remember that Paul wrote 1 Timothy to Timothy while he was serving in Ephesus.

Verse 8 reads:

But if anyone does not provide for his own, especially those in his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

If anyone refuses to care for the members of his own household, he is worse than an unbeliever. That’s an extremely harsh condemnation. In the Greco-Roman world at this time, a person’s household was made up not only of spouse and children, but also commonly of their elderly parents, any servants or slaves, and in some cases extended family as well. You had the potential for quite a few dependents in that day, and as we learn elsewhere from 1 Timothy, Paul often speaks primarily of the wealthy when he issues these standards and requirements.

So how are these two passages, Deut. 6:6-7 and 1 Tim. 5:8, related? Any thoughts?

I will submit to you, that they are both concerned with tending to and caring for those in your household. In Deut. 6, the concern – and the explicit obligation – is that parents are to teach their children the Torah. It is the responsibility of parents to train their children. Regarding 1 Tim. 5, we see how important it is to provide for the members of your own household.

We are obligated to provide for the needs of our households.

Now let’s get one more verse for this point.

Proverbs 22:6. This is a very well-known verse for parents. I’m sure just about everyone has heard or read it before, even if you don’t remember the reference.

Train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old he will not turn from it.

The Hebrew word here for “train up” is chanokh, and is the source for the word “hanukkah.” It means “to dedicate” or to “cause to become experienced.” This might make the wording a bit awkward, but I believe this changes the way we would understand the verse. We would not be simply training or teaching children, but rather, causing them to become experienced. This is not a passive role; this is an active role.

When we think of teaching, we often think of lecturing. We think of a person standing in a classroom, or behind a pulpit, speaking. But that isn’t the sort of teaching and training expressed in Deut. 6 or Prov. 22. It’s more active, and takes more work, than that.

First obligation: caring for one’s household.

So the first obligation is caring for one’s household. Teaching and training and dedicating the next generation to the way that they should go. We bless and pray for our children every week during Sabbath service, and we often pray for the parents as well, as they bear the burden of raising and training these children.

The second obligation I want to talk about, is the obligation of witness. We talk about witnessing; we talk about giving our testimony. But what does that really mean, and what does it look like? And are we truly obligated – expected and required – to do so?

Second obligation: witnessing.

To answer that question, we could read the entire book of Acts. Especially the first half of it. We could go to the end of Matthew 28, where Yeshua says to go and make disciples of all nations and teaching them to obey all that He commanded. (Sound familiar?) There are plenty of references to our obligation to witness, but the question then arises: how do we do it? What does it look like?

It is my opinion that first and foremost, your witness is your lifestyle. The things you do at work, the way you act at the grocery store, the way you speak to people on social media. The best witness is one that is a living example of Yeshua Messiah. This is directly implied in the Apostolic Scriptures (New Testament). When we trust in Yeshua, we affirm our loyalty to Him. It’s essentially a pledge of allegiance to Yeshua as King. In the world in which the Apostles lived, this was direct opposition to the imperial cult of Rome. The Roman government required and enforced worship of not only the Roman gods, but also of Caesar. This is why the words to the seven Churches in Revelation often use language of endurance and holding fast.

In the Roman world, your friends and family and neighbors would quickly discover that you no longer followed their gods. Sacrifices to the gods on one’s behalf and on the behalf of the emperor were a regular part of life. Just as today we hold the expectation that people perform civic duties like voting, jury duty, and renewing their license plates, so too did the roman empire have civic expectations. But these often included the imperial cult of Caesar. So if you refused to eat in the presence of idols; if you refused to call Caesar high priest and son of the gods (a statement which was on Roman coinage); you would quickly be found out.

So Paul encourages us to live out our lives in a certain way. Because people are watching.

Here’s a few Scriptural references for this.

Colossians 4:5-6

5Conduct yourselves with wisdom toward outsiders, making the most of the opportunity. 6Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, to know how you ought to answer everyone.

Ephesians 5:15-20

15So pay close attention to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise. 16Make the most of your time because the days are evil. 17For this reason do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

18And do not get drunk on wine, for that is recklessness. Instead, be filled with the Ruach, 19speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your heart to the Lord—

20always giving thanks for everything to God the Father, in the name of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah.

1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

9Now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to write you—for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another. 10In fact, you even practice it toward all your brothers and sisters throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to keep progressing more and more 11and aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, just as we directed you— 12so you may behave properly toward outsiders and not have need of anything.

There are standards on how we are to behave before a watching world.

And this brings me to my next point: escapism.

Escapism

In the normative evangelical Church, there is a belief – especially prevalent in the US – about the Rapture. Now I’m not big on teaching eschatology (that is, about the End Times); it’s a murky area, and people get all up in arms about it. But this needs to be said. So then, the Rapture. Whether that’s pre-trib Rapture – so it happens before the 7 years of tribulation – or mid-trib Rapture – where it happens 3.5 years into the tribulation – or what have you, the point is the same: everything’s gonna burn, and God is gonna remove us from this world, so why should I care? There are a lot of believers that don’t care about evangelizing because they’re so focused on escape. Getting out of here.

In the Torah movement, we see something similar. It’s most commonly known as the Second Exodus, or sometimes the Greater Exodus. In short, it is the belief that just prior to the tribulation beginning, God will do once again what He did with the first Exodus. That is, He will bring all of His people out of the places where they are and gather them together to keep them safe in the wilderness, while the world tears itself apart. There are a lot of people prepping for this very event. They’re spending a lot of time and money on supplies and munitions for this.

Now I’m not against being prepared, let me say that quickly. I think it’s good to be prepared for anything you can be. But I believe this becomes a problem when we have the whole next generation being taught more about how to properly pack a bag of waterproof matches, than they are about how to share the Gospel. We have a generation of kids now, that have been raised with Torah-keeping, that know the types of material used in the curtain of the Tabernacle, but don’t know how to serve and love others. I’ve seen parents teaching their kids that “Gospel” means “keep the Torah” and “share the Gospel” means telling people to keep the Torah. They’re putting the proverbial cart before the horse. I’m arguing here for balance; for an adjustment of our priorities. We need to not “neglect the weightier matters.”

This doesn’t just affect the faith-life of the next generation, but also how they grow up in society. I’ve seen kids that have no social security number; no birth certificate. They don’t even know how old they are because they’ve been taught that birthdays are pagan. They don’t know how to file taxes; they don’t have any job skills; they can’t go to college or trade school. They’re being raised and told “Next year, Yeshua is coming back when the blood moons happen, and is taking us to the wilderness.”

Again, I don’t have a problem with being prepared, or with off-grid living. But I have observed a lot of failures to properly prepare and train our children to be the next generation in this world. Instead, many have opted for escapism, for this idea of going from one End-Times prediction to the next. No need to get “indoctrinated” at college; no need to go work for Pharaoh over at IBM or Verizon.

Then there’s the disappointment that happens when, inevitably, this generation’s parents die and their predictions and prophecies didn’t come to pass. We then have an entire generation who was taught, from a young age, that the world was coming to an end because God said so, and then it didn’t happen. This shouldn’t come as a surprise; we’ve seen this before.

In the early to mid 1800s, William Miller, a Baptist minister, began teaching that he had decoded Daniel 8. He claimed that it predicted Messiah’s cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary and the final act of putting away sin – culminating in His Second Coming – on October 22nd of 1844. Thousands waited for that day, and finally it came. And it went. And nothing happened. It came to be known as the Great Disappointment. Many people lost hope and faith over that event. They had oriented their lives towards His return on that day, and were unprepared for what would occur if He did not.

This is the danger I see in the body today: people being more concerned with prepping their kids to survive the apocalypse, than with prepping them to live out their natural lives in modern society. Than having to get jobs, pay bills, raise a family. Than sharing the Gospel of the Risen Messiah with a dying world.

You don’t have to be materialistic or greedy, to provide for your family, get out of debt, and have enough to be generous with. Whenever I pray and ask Adonai for blessing, I always try to remember to also say, “that I may be a blessing to others.” We have Torah-keeping families that are homeless, and others that are near-homeless. The other end of the spectrum is the prosperity preaching, “God wants you to be a billionaire” drivel. But there is a balance. If all your needs are met, you are satisfied. But then you don’t have more to give. If you have an abundance, you can give more, you can shine the light of the Gospel.

In closing, I do have a couple pieces of advice.

Be Kingdom-Minded

First, be Kingdom-minded. Yeshua said “Seek first the Kingdom of Heaven.” We need to keep the central focus of our lives on Yeshua, and His work. Observance of the Torah should flow from that naturally, when we begin asking, “How much do I get to do?” instead of “How much do I have to do?” Paul did not expect believers to abandon their homes and families. He exhorted them to live and work in peace.

Prepare the Next Generation

Second, work to prepare the next generation not only for the end of the world, but also for the continuation of it. Mankind has a terrible track record of predicting the return of Messiah. We need to strive to help encourage and build and train the next generation. Whether that is preparing them to greet the returning King, or preparing them to be the next generation of leaders and teachers and servants and ministers of the Gospel of the Kingdom.

Let us not neglect our obligations to be living witnesses to those around us; to share the hope that is in us; and to train the next generation in the same.

Shalom.