A Rootless Tree
Many experiencing the emptiness of vain religious profession today are ripe for being sold a beautiful solution of going back to the “Christian” or “Hebrew Roots.” If only you observe the proper form of religion, you will be as believers of old and Jewish as well, your works proving you’re a flesh and blood member of the “lost” tribes of Israel. What security for a season – until you find out that flesh and form never connect you to the True Tree and Foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Anna wrote to us about an important decision she was facing:
Hi Victor,
I am at a fork in the road between observing the feasts (as a means of obedience and not Salvation) or not. Jesus and the Apostles did. I am in agreement with your Christ has fulfilled the Law… article. Maybe I need clarification on the differences between laws, statutes, judgments & ordinances to understand this.
Anna
Anna included a link to a Jim Staley video about the Law of God and the “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel,” part of his claim to represent an authentic “Christian Roots Movement.” The link now comes up as “Private” and isn’t viewable by the general public. Our letters identify and address the content of the video, which will help you understand the teaching and its error. Should the video become available, we will publish the link. Meanwhile, here is the link to Jim Staley’s website: http://passionfortruth.com/.
Victor’s reply:
Hi Anna,
The video by Jim Staley is confusing, though Jim is right on some things. For example, he says the Law hasn’t been done away (very important point) and God is One, not a trinity (very true). Good!
However, he leads people into the mindset of an intellectual salvation. This is evident by how he promises his audience’s “mind will be blown” by what he makes known to them. That isn’t how God works, as refined and informed as man’s carnal mind may appear to be. God’s truth is made known by revelation, not intellectual impartation. Jim’s approach wouldn’t be cerebral if he had revelation from above.
Staley has other errors, one of those being that we should try our best to keep the Law. That isn’t good enough. Jesus said:
“For I say to you that unless your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (Matthew 5:20 MKJV).
The Pharisees certainly tried to keep the Law, as did Cain.
Paul said this:
“I was circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews. As regards the Law, I was a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; regarding the righteousness in the Law, blameless” (Philippians 3:5-6 MKJV).
Yet Paul knew it wasn’t good enough for God. Of course, he didn’t know that until the Lord personally revealed Himself to Paul, which is what happens to every true believer.
The Lord hasn’t witnessed to me that Jim Staley has the Spirit of God. His thinking is quite intelligent, but man’s intelligence doesn’t count with God:
1 Corinthians 2:13-16 MKJV
(13) These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
(14) But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
(15) But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged by no one.
(16) For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
Jesus said, “I thank You, O Father, Lord of Heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the sophisticated and cunning, and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight” (Matthew 11:25-26 MKJV).
Jim is relying on his own wisdom and learning, which means he can’t be anything but off track. I question his speculations on who Israel is, though there are some true things spoken. By the Spirit and by virtue of our new birth from above, we know we are Jews (Hebrews):
“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that outwardly in flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart; in spirit and not in letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God” (Romans 2:28-29 MKJV).
“But as many as received Him, He gave to them authority to become the children of God, to those who believe on His Name, who were born, not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but were born of God” (John 1:12-13 MKJV).
You’re right when you say Jesus and the apostles kept the Feasts, but that was only because they were obligated and able to, seeing that the priesthood, sacrifices, and Temple were still in force. While Jesus was still alive, He hadn’t yet fulfilled the ordinances and was therefore subject to them.
Forty years from the time Jesus fulfilled all things by His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and return (outpouring of His Spirit at Pentecost), the transition was complete. This was when General Titus of Rome marched on Jerusalem and destroyed everything of Israel and its ceremonial structure. And that’s partly what Jesus meant would happen when He said:
John 4:21-24 MKJV
(21) Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you shall neither worship the Father in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem.
(22) You worship what you do not know, we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.
(23) But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him.
(24) God is a spirit, and they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
For a time, the believing Jews were finding their way to understanding the implications of all that Jesus had accomplished before all was destroyed. They struggled with circumcision and Feast-keeping, and matters of the ceremonial Law for years and slowly came to realize that all things had indeed been fulfilled, even as the veil into the Holy of Holies had been torn from top to bottom at Christ’s death.
Truly, all things were fulfilled in those days but, like the rest of us, it took time for them to “get it.” Not all things in the Kingdom of God develop instantaneously – certainly not the understanding.
Read The Feast-Keeping that Is Sin and let us know how that helps you. Lord willing, it will. It certainly addresses your fork in the road. You need to know that unless the Feasts are fulfilled in you, your external Feast-keeping is vain. Not only so, but when those Feasts become the Reality Within, you’ll know there is no longer a need for external observances. Indeed, you’ll realize that the keeping of the shadows is illegal and gross unbelief. You’ll understand.
Which brings up another point Jim makes. He suggests we’ll be keeping all or much more of the Law again “when Jesus returns.” If Jim is speaking ceremonial Law with physical blood sacrifices and offerings, he’s certainly wrong. If he speaks of the Ten Commandments, he’s wrong. As new creatures in Christ, we already keep God’s Commandments now by His grace.
However, if by “reinstating the Law,” Jim speaks of bringing the Law of God to the entire world, there’s truth, for there cannot be complete harmony and order without the Law of God fulfilled in the hearts of all men. There’s no alternative to this.
Micah 4:1-3 MKJV
(1) But it shall be in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it.
(2) And many nations shall come and say, “Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob. And He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for the Law shall go forth out of Zion, and the Word of the LORD from Jerusalem.”
(3) And He shall judge between many peoples, and will decide for strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, and they shall not still learn war.
Isaiah speaks the same words (Isaiah 2:1-4).
This is providing there can or should be a universal “reinstatement” of the Law of God. Hasn’t His Law been there for all persons or has it ever been abolished or set aside at any time? We read:
“But the Law entered so that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, so that as sin has reigned to death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 5:20-21 MKJV).
“For as many as sinned without Law will also perish without Law. And as many as have sinned within Law shall be judged through Law” (Romans 2:12 MKJV).
The ministry of Christ in His Body lifts up God’s standards, His moral Law:
“The LORD is well pleased for His righteousness sake; He will magnify the Law and make it honorable” (Isaiah 42:21 MKJV).
We know the Law is in force when we’re made aware of it. When people’s hearts are turned to the Lord in repentance, then they can fulfill the Law by His faith, which they are never able to do through their own power:
“This only I would learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the Law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, do you now perfect yourself in the flesh?” (Galatians 3:2-3 MKJV)
How can you know these things for yourself, Anna? You must have your own oil. Read my testimony to see how the Lord fulfilled the Feasts in me. Also read The Three Degrees for more explanation and, most importantly, The Baptism in the Holy Spirit, outlining where the spiritual path truly begins and where it progresses for the spiritual sojourner to the City of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem.
As to the differences between all the terms referring to the Law of God, see Psalm 119 where they are all used and check them out in the Strong’s Concordance, available free in e-Sword.net (KJV+ version).
Victor
Paul’s reply:
Hi Anna,
You say in your letter that you’re considering observing the Feasts as a matter of obedience to God. Have you red in our papers or considered that it’s impossible to keep the Feasts according to the commandment of God given to Moses? We explain how in the paper The Feast-Keeping that Is Sin, but in a nutshell, keeping the Feasts requires the appropriate sacrifices administered by a Levitical priest. And trying to keep the ordinances of God in any way other than according to His instructions is sin.
Hebrews 8:1-6 MKJV
(1) Now the sum of the things which we have spoken is this: We have such a High Priest, Who has sat down on the right of the throne of the Majesty in Heaven,
(2) a Minister of the Sanctuary and of the true Tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.
(3) For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this One have something to offer also.
(4) For if indeed He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the Law,
(5) who serve the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was warned of God when he was about to make the Tabernacle. For, He says “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown to you in the mountain.”
(6) But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which was built upon better promises.
The Lord Jesus Christ isn’t ministering to us according to the Law of ordinances given to Moses for the keeping of Feasts and sacrifices, but performs the true essence of those observances inside of us, those who believe and obey Him.
Hebrews 8:7-13 MKJV
(7) For if that first covenant had been without fault, then no place would have been sought for the second.
(8) For finding fault with them, He said to them, Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, and I will make an end on the house of Israel and on the house of Judah; a new covenant shall be,
(9) not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day I took hold of their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in My covenant, and I did not regard them, says the Lord.
(10) For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
(11) And they shall not each man teach his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest.
(12) For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more.
(13) In that He says, A new covenant, He has made the first one old. Now that which decays and becomes old is ready to vanish away.
This brings us to Jim Staley’s video. His message is garbled because he doesn’t have the Spirit of God, which means he hasn’t experienced the spiritual fulfillment of the Feasts in Christ. In other words, Jim hasn’t kept the Feasts in the new covenant that’s in effect. That’s why he tries to keep the Feasts in the flesh according to the covenant that’s vanished away. Jim interprets the Scriptures according to his carnal thinking, not by spiritual revelation from the Lord or with godly reasoning and understanding.
For example, in the Scriptures I just quoted from Hebrews 8, the Lord says He will make an end of His covenant with the houses of Israel and Judah, and then speaks of His new covenant with the house of Israel. Is the Lord therefore excluding Judah from the new covenant? Of course not – He is simply saying there will only be one house. The houses of Israel and Judah are now one and the same. That’s why we don’t hear any talk whatsoever of two houses in the books of the New Testament. There are just the Jews, who are Israel.
What we do hear, however, and what is of great importance in the writings of the apostles, is this: “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that outwardly in flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart; in spirit and not in letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God” (Romans 2:28-29 MKJV).
According to Staley’s theory, that should read: “For he is not a member of the ten lost tribes of Israel who is one outwardly, except that first he believes and behaves as one outwardly by keeping the ordinances of God as I define them, becoming ‘circumcised’ so to speak. This proves he is an actual member of Israel, descended from Abraham through Jacob. Then you can forget all this inward stuff.”
But if you are a believer, circumcised in the heart by God, you are a true Jew and Israelite:
Ephesians 2:11-14 ESV
(11) Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands–
(12) remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
(13) But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
(14) For He Himself is our peace, Who has made us both one….
“For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. And as for all who walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God” (Galatians 6:15-16 ESV).
The ten tribes weren’t ever “strangers to the covenants of promise,” except through unbelief and rebellion by which they were dispersed, as have been all Jews.
Staley repeatedly mangles the Scriptures to suit his theory. Some examples…
He cites Daniel 9:7 as saying Judah is near and the ten tribes are far away, but a careful reading shows this conclusion is totally unwarranted:
“O Lord, righteousness belongs to You, but to us the shame of our faces, as it is this day to the men of Judah, and to those living in Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near and who are afar through all the lands where You have driven them for their unfaithfulness which they have done against You” (Daniel 9:7 LITV).
The Scripture says the men of Israel were near and afar, not just afar. We have proof of this: There was Anna the prophetess in Jerusalem, from the supposed lost tribe of Asher, and the apostle Matthew, a Levite, in Israel proper, as were many Levites. On the other hand, there was Saul of Tarsus of Benjamin, a tribe cohabitating with Judah, yet Saul was living outside of Jerusalem and Israel in Tarsus of Asia Minor.
(Here’s an article that gives a sound Scriptural examination of the myth of the “lost” tribes:
http://www.lightofmashiach.org/losttribes.html)
Staley also quotes Isaiah 57:19 as proof of the ten tribes being “far off.” That’s not, however, what the Lord is saying – not even remotely. Here is the context:
Isaiah 57:14-19 MKJV
(14) And He shall say, Raise up! Raise up! Clear the way! Make the stumbling-block rise out of the way of My people.
(15) For so says the high and lofty One Who inhabits eternity; Whose Name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, even with the contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
(16) For I will not contend forever, nor will I be always angry; for the spirit should fail before Me, and the souls I have made.
(17) For the iniquity of his covetousness I was angry and struck him; I hid Myself, and was angry, and he went on turning away in the way of his heart.
(18) I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will also lead him, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners.
(19) I create the fruit of the lips; peace, peace, to him far off, and to him near, says the LORD; and I will heal him.
God is speaking of all Israel as His people. I have experienced the reality and fulfillment of these words, not because of physically being a Jew, but as a believer in the King of the Jews. These words apply to all the children of faith, and are also a promise of universal reconciliation, because God will save all Israel in due course, including the physical nation He blinded. He says so:
Romans 11:25-29 MKJV
(25) For I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, lest you should be wise within yourselves; that blindness in part has happened to Israel [the twelve tribes including Judah – weren’t they blinded, too?], until the fullness of the nations [all those outside the twelve tribes] has comes in.
(26) And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written, “There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob [from whom comes all twelve tribes].
(27) For this is My covenant with them, when I have taken away their sins.”
(28) Indeed as regards the Gospel, they are enemies for your sakes. But as regards the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes [are the ten tribes not the children of the fathers?].
(29) For the free gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
The apostle Paul in this chapter also gives the analogy of the Gentiles being a wild olive tree grafted onto the stock of Israel, a good olive cultivar made by God. Staley latches onto this as sure proof that the wild olive tree could only be referring to the “lost” ten tribes of Israel because only Israel is referred to in the Bible as an olive tree. This reasoning is faulty.
If God was bringing the Gentiles into the fold of His sheep Israel, as He showed Peter when He sent him to Cornelius (Acts 10), then the comparison of a wild olive tree being grafted onto God’s domesticated stock is entirely reasonable. Certainly, you can’t graft a pine or any other tree branch onto an olive tree and produce fruit on those branches, can you? Therefore an analogy using the olive tree as representative of God’s work in His people, Israel, and a wild olive tree representing the rest of the nations (Gentiles), who share the same DNA as children of men and who also enter by faith, is valid.
How else will God save all those for whom Christ died (the whole world – John 3:16), except by building on His work through His people, which began with Abraham and came through Israel and their Messiah, Abraham’s seed?
So, seeing how Gentiles can be grafted onto the domestic olive tree, as proven with Cornelius (“one of good report among all the nation of the Jews”), then Gentiles, not the ten tribes of Israel, must be the wild olive tree. None of the Israelites were ever Gentiles, and are never referred to by God and His prophets as Gentiles.
“Therefore it is of faith so that it might be according to grace; for the promise to be made sure to all the seed, not only to that which is of the Law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it has been written, ‘I have made you a father of many nations’ [the Gentiles]) –before God, Whom he believed, Who makes the dead live, and calls the things which do not exist as though they do exist” (Romans 4:16-17 MKJV).
Doesn’t that last line also explain the grafting in of the Gentiles? Being outside the Law and covenants of God, they didn’t exist as part of His nation, yet now, according to the will of God as the One Who calls, they are grafted in, being made children of Abraham through Christ, his Seed.
With the corrupted thinking of his carnal, glory-seeking mind, Staley is the proverbial hammer to which everything appears as a nail. He claims that Hosea is also speaking of the “lost” ten tribes, while Paul makes it clear Hosea was speaking of all nations besides Israel (note: “nations,” not “tribes”). Here are the Scriptures, starting with Hosea:
“And I will sow her unto Me in the earth; and I will have mercy upon her that had not obtained mercy; and I will say to them which were not My people, ‘Thou art My people’; and they shall say, ‘Thou art my God’” (Hosea 2:23 KJV).
And here’s what Paul wrote in Romans, explaining the fulfillment of Hosea:
Romans 9:22-26, 30-33 EMTV
(22) But what if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make known His power, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath having been prepared for destruction,
(23) and so that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory,
(24) even us whom He called, not only of the Jews [meaning ALL the tribes of Israel, as Jesus said, “I am not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”], but also of the Gentiles [the nations outside of those to whom Christ was sent]?
(25) As also in Hosea He says: “I will call those My people who were not My people, and her beloved, who was not beloved.”
(26) “And it shall be in the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not My people,’ there they shall be called sons of the living God.” …
(30) What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness of faith;
(31) but Israel [the twelve tribes who were given the Law at Sinai], pursuing a Law of righteousness, did not attain to the Law of righteousness.
(32) Why? Because they did not seek it by faith, but as it were, by the works of the Law. For they stumbled at that stone of stumbling.
(33) Just as it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion [before Israel, recipients of the Law, headquartered in Jerusalem] a stone of stumbling and rock of offense, and everyone believing on Him will not be put to shame.”
There is nothing at all in these Scriptures to indicate the Gentiles (or nations) are the ten tribes of Israel. On the contrary, it clearly speaks of the Gentiles as the nations outside of the twelve tribes of Israel, and of God’s people as the twelve tribes of Israel.
“That the house of Israel may go no more astray from Me, neither be polluted any more with all their transgressions; but that they may be My people, and I may be their God, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezekiel 14:11 KJV). The delineation between the house of Israel and the nations (Gentiles) is always clearly defined and without confusion in the Word of God.
Continuing with his theme of Scriptural misinterpretation, Staley wrongly surmises that the believers of Galatia were all Israelites from the ten “lost” tribes. He bases this unsubstantiated conclusion on the opening words of Peter’s first epistle:
“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect sojourners of the Dispersion of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1 EMTV).
All this tells us is that Peter was writing to the Jewish believers in those regions. How can this lead one to infer that all the believers in those regions were Jews? If I write a letter to the Jewish believers in New York, does that mean all believers in New York are Jewish? Wasn’t Paul sent to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles (nations outside of Israel), including those in Galatia?
“For He that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles” (Galatians 2:8 KJV).
Peter was writing to “the circumcision” outside of geographical Israel. Are only Judah and Benjamin “the circumcision”? No, “the circumcision” includes all twelve tribes of Israel, with whom God made the covenant of circumcision through Abraham:
Genesis 17:9-11 MKJV
(9) And God said to Abraham, “And you shall keep My covenant, you and your seed after you in their generations.
(10) This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your seed after you. Every male child among you shall be circumcised.
(11) And you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin. And it shall be a token of the covenant between Me and you.”
Joshua 5:2-8 ESV
(2) At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.”
(3) So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.
(4) And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: All the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt.
(5) Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised.
(6) For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of the LORD; the LORD swore to them that he would not let them see the land that the LORD had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey.
(7) So it was their children, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised. For they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way.
(8) When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed.
It’s clear from the very start of Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia that he wasn’t writing to Jews or Israelites.
“For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers” (Galatians 1:13-14 ESV).
If Paul was talking to Jews or Israelites, he would have said “the traditions of our fathers.” But he said “my fathers” because those to whom he was speaking had different fathers, not Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel). Therefore, Paul wasn’t addressing members of the twelve tribes of Israel. He was speaking to the Gentiles, the nations of those who had never been under God’s covenant with Israel.
This explains why the Galatians to which Paul was writing were being compelled to get circumcised by those of “the circumcision,” because as Gentiles outside the covenant of God with Israel they didn’t have the practice of circumcision, but were being forced to do it by those zealous in a form of righteousness, which isn’t the righteousness of Christ:
“As many as desire to look well in the flesh, these compel you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For they themselves, having been circumcised, do not even keep the Law, but they desire you to be circumcised so that they may boast in your flesh” (Galatians 6:12-13 MKJV).
When Paul went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, a Levite from Cyprus, and Titus, a Greek (Gentile), Paul says nothing about Barnabas being leaned on to get circumcised, because all the tribes in the Dispersion practiced circumcision. Not so, however, with non-Jews:
“But not even Titus, the one with me, a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised” (Galatians 2:3 LITV).
Would Jim Staley argue that these Greeks, among other nationalities, were originally people of the ten tribes of Israel but were assimilated with the Gentiles and didn’t realize they were blood Israelites, having lost/forgotten their true identity centuries after the Babylonian dispersion? Perhaps, but his argument would be without basis or proof.
The message of Paul’s epistle to the Galatians is that they, as Gentiles, were given the promise of salvation from the beginning through Christ, by faith and not by the works of the Law:
“And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the Gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, ‘In you shall all the nations be blessed’” (Galatians 3:8 ESV).
So you can see how Staley’s premises are in error as we examine the Scriptures he offers as proofs. These things take some thought, because Jim has foregone the simplicity in Christ and has substituted a complex theology that leads nowhere. The oasis he boasts to have found is a mirage, without water or bread to offer any pilgrims who hunger and thirst after the righteousness of Christ.
Take your time, Anna, and read this letter more than once. You would do well to do that with all our writings and letters.
You aren’t going to be able to recreate the Temple observances, or get closer to God by contemplating how you fit in as one of the “lost” ten tribes. If you are a child of faith, you are already a Jew, a daughter or daughter-to-be of the King of the Jews. And if you are His sheep, He will most certainly guide you into life through faith and obedience, not by the works of the Law. Read Obedience and What Is Faith?
“I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD” (Psalms 27:13-14 KJV).
Paul
Anna replied:
Hi Victor & Paul,
I have only skimmed through this so far. Very thorough – thank you!
I have two little ones to tend to, so it will take me a little time.
Anna
P.S. I really enjoy your music. Shared it with a few friends. My husband and I call you the “I’d give anything” guy.
Victor wrote back:
I’m thankful the music is serving you all well, Anna. The words are born out of experience and most, if not all, of the songs are prophetic – the Lord’s doing and not mine. Good Sabbath!
Addendum:
While preparing to post this correspondence today, November 21, 2014, I found the following article on Jim Staley’s recent indictment on fraud charges regarding selling unsecured loans on insurance policies to investors who were promised guaranteed returns but subsequently lost all their money. Meanwhile, Jim collected over half a million dollars in commissions. Even if Jim is cleared of the charges, is this the kind of business one who presumes to be a preacher of Christ should be engaged in?
http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2014/06/25/wentzville-man-indicted-on-fraud-charges/
Apparently there’s a history behind this kind of activity, as well-documented in this video: Can Jim Staley be Trusted with Your Money?
“Therefore if you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust the true riches to you?” (Luke 16:11 MKJV)