As someone who came out of the Institutionalized Church, I can emphatically tell you that my walk has been truly enriched beyond measure since embracing the Jewish Roots of my faith.
I'm grateful that Israel is God's nation for eternity. I'm grateful to be grafted in. I'm thankful that God spoke directly to these people for my posterity.
For those who refute Torah, you are refuting something that is eternally Holy. It is written upon our hearts. Please don't discard it!
Everything God does, says and breathes cannot just be set aside and ignored.
The Lord set his appointed times in Leviticus for all to celebrate in remembrance of this ongoing revelation of Torah!
Sergio, this was beautiful, and I agree with the main concern: Torah should never be reduced to a sterile list of commandments, nor should Christians treat it as something embarrassing that needs to be escaped.
But I want to press the category a little.
Is Torah best described as “the Father’s letter to humanity,” or as covenant instruction given specifically to Israel, through whom the nations are meant to behold the wisdom, justice, holiness, and mercy of Israel’s God?
That distinction matters, especially when Jeremiah 31 enters the discussion. The new covenant promise is not addressed generically to humanity, but to the house of Israel and the house of Judah specifically. The Torah written on the heart is covenant restoration language with Israel, not individual devotional language.
I also agree that Matthew 7’s *anomia* should not be softened into vague “bad behavior.” It is covenantal lawlessness. But I would be cautious about making it mean simply “without Torah,” as though Yeshua’s warning is only about Torah observance. The issue seems deeper: those of Israel claiming his name while living outside the allegiance, order, and covenant faithfulness to their God.
So I am with you that Torah is about knowing God. I would just want to keep the covenant frame firmly underneath it. Torah is not merely a love letter floating free from covenant. It is the instruction of the covenant King to His redeemed people Israel, revealing His heart and His order so that Israel, and through Israel, the nations may know Him.
You're right. "Father's letter to humanity" is an intentionally wide entry point. The post was built to provoke, not to land the full covenant frame. I have a longer post that I was going to unpack that very thing on my main website, but thank you for calling it out.
The precision you're bringing is exactly correct. Torah is covenant instruction to Israel. The nations don't receive it as their own covenant document. They behold it. Israel's faithful observance was always meant to be the testimony that drew the nations toward the covenant King. That's the missional architecture of the whole thing and most of Christianity missed it entirely because they inherited a framework that cut Israel out of the story.
Your Jeremiah 31 point is the one I want to sit with publicly. The new covenant promise is addressed to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not to the church. Not to generic humanity. Covenant restoration language with a specific people. The ekklesia gets grafted into that story. It doesn't replace it. Amen Amen Amen!
And the anomia deepening is fair. Covenantal lawlessness isn't just Torah non-observance. It's the posture of claiming the King's name while living outside allegiance to his order. That's a sharper and more honest read.
Come back and press often. This is exactly what the table is for.
Thank you, Sergio. I genuinely receive that with humility.
This is exactly the kind of table conversation I love that where the beauty of what is being said can be honored, and the covenant frame can be sharpened without anyone needing to defend territory.
I also deeply appreciate your willingness to keep Israel, the nations, Torah, and covenant restoration in their proper places. That is where the whole story becomes so much richer to me.
And yes, I may come back and press again from time to time. Gently and respectfully, of course. 😊
Deuteronomy 4:7-8: "For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?"
Let's not forget that 603 of these laws are from the Rabbinic traditions. It's the same mess I left in The Institutionalized Church. Traditions of men flow from both ends!
Ha… I need to find the other article for you Scott. They are all in there and valid. The Pharisees built fences around the ones God provided. I’ll look 👀
Beautiful. And beautifully brilliant. And the part about creation shouting at us announcing who He is? 100%! I have felt Him all my life. Even before I knew - anything. Ty. 🙏🏻
"It is a love letter from the Maker of the universe to the humanity He made." Too many people reply with a "Dear John letter". Thank you for opening eyes and ears. Grateful for your gift.
Ive been sitting with your Substack post and also found the longer piece “the torah you can keep today” and I have a few questions. I’m on a deep dive to recover some of the reformed/penal sub language imposed on the Christian experience with the Hebrew context.
On anomia first, I want to make sure Im reading it correctly… the Hebrew anchor from the Hebraic tool suggests its a life lived off the path YHWH instructed. Torah being the mark revealed, the sign that connects you to the highest, and anomia the arrow that misses entirely. He’s not describing a believer who isn’t keeping Torah, He is describing a life lived off the covenant path. Is that a correct reading on my end?
On taher and kaphar, Ive been sitting with these roots from the word ‘purging’ as I dig into sanctification and the fulfilment of animal sacrifice. I want to ask if I am reaching or whether this is a genuine connection - taher pictographically is the lifting/cleaning of clinging mud. Ongoing continuous, layer after layer surfaced and cleaned out. And kaphar as the pitch smeared on Noahs ark, a protective sealing, the vessel made waterproof so the judgement water couldn’t come in. Im wondering if taher points to ongoing sanctification and kaphar the once for all covering / justfication?
Two things working together, the kaphar making the taher possible because the vessel is sealed so there’s no condemnation, and the sanctification work can go deeper and deeper, layer by layer. Am I connecting dots that don’t belong together?
There seems to be a tension between two pieces of your writing. This post reads as person and relationship centred, “come and read the fathers letter, come know Him” but your website piece “the torah you can keep today reads as practice centred - “here’s what’s binding, here’s the invitation pick one and start…” Im not sure you have reconciled those anywhere, and one is relational but the other is leaning into works based.
Tripartite framework - I noticed the study tool says that the moral/ceremonial division comes from a Thomistic framework found nowhere in the Hebrew text, but the website piece “the Torah you can keep today” uses exactly that framework to explain what applies today. Is that framework doing the very thing the study tool critiques?
On gentiles - you say a gentile isn’t obligated to keep the whole torah, but is invited to go deeper by engaging with moral and civil principles… but whether you say “don’t do it as law, do it as covenant” you’d still be doing/keeping something either way. The framing, law vs covenant doesn’t change the activity. And if a gentile can choose which ones to engage with and to leave then who decides that? If the torah doesn’t divide itself into categories and Yeshua says not one yod will pass, then someone is making editorial decisions about Gods instruction… isn’t that fence building from the other direction?
On sexual faithfulness - specifically in your article the torah you can keep today you list this as a moral law reflecting Gods eternal character binding on everyone. if sexual faithfulness is written into who He is, and His Spirit lives inside a believer, wouldn’t that person be experiencing conviction around it, from within? Not because they read the law, but because His nature pressing on theirs makes settling into casual unfaithfulness increasingly difficult without conviction? As with all moral laws, I’m questioning whether “practice it as covenant” adds anything to what the Spirit is already producing in someone genuinely walking with Him.
Acts 15 - I’m under the impression the council wasn’t addressing the whole world. Was it not a specific pastoral response to a specific controversy, whether gentiles need to be circumcised? Were those four requirements at the council meant to be a comprehensive gentile torah framework for all time?
And finally, you say he carries what we couldn’t carry. He writes what we couldn’t write. What I have been experiencing looks something like faith as emunah - a steady returning rather than doctrinal compliance and law keeping. Something that might be taher happening from the inside, clinging layers surfaced one at a time. The vessel, my vessel held by what might be kaphar - sealed, no condemnation so He can keep going deeper. And the davar cutting to the lev, not pointing to the behaviour but getting underneath.
And I believe Torah as davar, living covenant speech that always does what it says, is necessary for that process to happen. Not as a checklist for righteousness but as the instrument. Because my conviction hasn’t come from the Spirit working independently of the Word, it comes from hearing it studying it, praying it. Isaiah 55:11 - it doesn’t return void. Hebrew 4:12 - living and active cutting to the lev. The word seems to be what the spirit uses to do the “lifting”.
So maybe the question is not to keep the torah or not, maybe its are you hearing it, receiving it and letting it cut?
I don’t think torah is abolished. I think keeping it is from the inside now. being taught from within. By Himself. Through His Word. With grace to make mistakes. With His covering making the ongoing lifting possible. His Spirit causing us to walk in it - not straining to keep it but Him producing it from within.
So if something like that is already happening in someone genuinely walking in this - what are we actually being called to beyond receiving His life and responding to what He's already producing in us?
And underneath all of it - are you saying keep the Torah or not?
First off, thank you. You did something for that piece I could not do for it myself.
I have to be completely honest with you Chloe. The clarity I have now was not there when I wrote that original post. It came together over the last few months, and what stings is that I had just handed that older version to @Scott Cooper , he was asking me this exact thing. Your questions sent me back to check it. It most certainly had issues.
So…… I spent the afternoon revising, ending up rewriting it, and your name is on it now, see the intro.
Your comment hit my feed while I was finalizing a deeper piece on this very subject, and that old post did not reflect what the new one was already saying either. You did not catch one stray article. You caught me mid-turn, right as the whole thing was coming into focus. I do not think that was timing. I think it was divine intervention 😉.
As I promised, let me address your questions.
On anomia, you have it: a life lived structurally off the covenant path, not a believer who missed an observance. One refinement that makes it stronger, the "arrow that misses" is chatat, hamartia, missing the mark. Anomia is a- (without) plus nomos (Torah). Not a bad shot, no path at all. Anomia and the failure of yada are the same failure.
On taher and kaphar, you are not reaching. Kaphar's first appearance in Scripture is the pitch on Noah's ark, the covering that keeps the judgment-water out, the Hebrew teaching you what atonement is. One caution so no one can take it from you: kaphar in the Torah was repeated, and the once-for-all is what Yeshua did with it, not what the root means alone. But your instinct, the covering making the deeper cleansing possible, is exactly the shape of it. I put your words in the rewrite: His covering making the ongoing lifting possible. That is yours.
On the tension you felt, you were right, and it was not a small detail. The old piece used the moral, ceremonial, civil framework, which my own study tool calls Thomistic. You caught me running on a framework I critique elsewhere. And your sharpest point, who decides which a Gentile keeps: you do not curate a checklist at all. You receive the whole letter and read all of it for His heart, even the parts you will never physically walk. The old framing was fence-building from the other direction, and you saw it.
On Acts 15, exactly right. An entry threshold, not a finished Gentile Torah. Verse 21, Moses read every Sabbath, is the open door, not a closed canon.
The most important part, you asked whether the Ruach needs the Word or moves alone. Your own experience answered it. The Ruach is His breath, not a second voice beside Him, and that breath moves through the Word, not around it. Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12, living and active, cutting to the lev. I added a section to the rewrite for exactly this. You prompted it.
So…. Am I saying keep the Torah or not? Yes. But from the very core of who you are now, the way a son keeps his father's ways because he has come to want them, produced by His Ruach, through the Word, with grace to fumble and walk it again next week. Not a checklist. Him, writing Himself on you, using His own letter to do it.
What you described, emunah as a steady returning, taher from the inside, the davar cutting underneath the behavior, that is not you wondering if you are doing it right. That is it happening. Keep letting it cut..deep.
It seems we have both been on a journey to articulate the same thing from different angles. I'm so glad I messaged you and came across your post. I didn't mean to catch you out, but I've been consuming a lot of your content lately and I'm grateful that through these conversations we both get to refine our understanding and move forward with greater clarity.
What a gift!
I'm so encouraged because I feel like I now have a much firmer grasp of these words, at least as they relate to salvation and the way I share the gospel. The biggest blessing for me has been discovering that the Hebrew concepts seem to describe what God has been doing all along in my own walk and reveal His heart in the process. It's felt like an undoing of doctrines and frameworks that had previously laid over the experience, allowing me to see more clearly what He was actually doing all along.
Being able to articulate the experience of salvation through that lens has been incredibly encouraging.
I'll definitely note what you said about kaphar... that the sacrifices themselves were ongoing and that the "once for all" aspect isn't in the root alone. That makes sense.
Thank you again, brother. I'm greatly encouraged by this conversation, and I look forward to reading, learning and gleaning more.
Chloe, you've pointed out a number of things I need to go back to and make sure I'm coherent and aligned across. That piece was written a while back, and your reading is sharp enough that I'd rather take time and respond well than respond quickly. Give me a little, and I'll come back to you with a real engagement. Grateful you wrote this. 🙏
Love this, Sergio. Our God is not about putting heavy burdens on us in giving tons of rules…Torah is all about relationship. He wants us to know him and walk with him. So very true.
It’s becoming more and more clear…covenant in the garden, covenant on the mountain, covenant on the cross, fully restored covenant in the new heavens and earth
Thank you for this Sergio! It is a Love letter and a Treasure Map. Sometimes it can be tricky navigating but then am reminded The Way is revealed when we earnestly Seek! Shalom😊
I come to this thread late, and scholastically unprepared. You are all so far beyond me in your studies. But you open up so many doors for me! I love the conversations that are generated.
Thank you all for your thoughts and your questions. My mind is stimulated and hungry to explore God's word. I need to sit with all of this.
Wonderful. This has been the focus of my life for the past three and a half decades or so—coming to know the Lord. Your analysis opens things up to me and lets the whole thing fall into a more solid place.
You still skip Ezekiel 36 where the Father promises to give us Ruach HaKodesh living inside of us to enable us to walk it out. What gets me is that even as a spirit-filled believer I just have a glimpse of how good it is going to be once we get to be with Him forever. As I have said many times, I see this as the consummation experience in our marriage to the Lamb with our new spiritual bodies. Then we shall know as we are known.
Alleluia! The marriage supper of the Lamb is almost unimaginable. I saw glimpses of it with my marriage to past. Through a glass darkly, indeed. But we will be one with our Messiah the way He is one with the Father—all of us One. I can hardly wait.
Matthew 7:23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
— among some legalists within Sabbatarian congregations of believers in Jesus/Yahshua, this verse has been used to claim that those observing the pagan days of worship adopted into mainstream Christianity will be treated the same as any out right unrepentant heathen. such a mindset doesn't take into account that Jesus/Yahshua here does not say repentance is prohibited, however, some apparently have interpreted it so. for that matter, most all of mainstream Christianity and even many Sabbatarian congregations have interpreted likewise of the second resurrection. in my view, many believers will be pleasantly surprised in the end, for YHWH is a God of love & mercy, and all too often we tend to forget that.
But NO ONE needs a bible to understand that love is the "fulfillment" of God's law. No one needs a bible to fulfill that law. The bible is just a language that many are familiar with at this point...
Frankly, rhe world would be more Godly if people spent more time considering how they and the groups they join effect others rather than naval gazing about which day their deity prefers to be worshipped or what religious feast they should or should not keep... etc etc.
Who cares? Love your neighbor... it's the ONLY *proof* that one loves God with all their being. The bible doesn't make that so... the bible says it *because* it is so.
Aren't all the laws and instruction revolving around the temple part of Torah? They are. Why sis God irrevocably destroy the temple? Because those things don't matter! What they were meant to *signify* matters... and that time has already come.
I assume we are agreed that no one is going to recognize Saturday is a "sabbath" without a bible though - correct. It's not written in their heart or mind... it is written elsewhere. Or, you are going to give an actual example of someone who "keeps torah" without a bible or teacher - going only by their heart and mind.
I never say the bible is useless, I say it is absolutely not necessary to know God... and that it often does more harm than good when combined with the religious will worship of men.
Eric, your dilemma is back. You are using the Bible's account of the temple's destruction as the authority for why we do not need the Bible. The exact same loop.
Who needs the Torah whatsoever? I mean, what do obscure Hebrew (or Greek) Scriptures have anything to do with anyone?
No one would even have those Scriptures if it weren't for a power hungry institution and a team of Pharisees (who else was versed in Hebrew in the 1500's?).
What I'm getting at is this:
“The commandments “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” -Romans 13:8-10.
Yes I am quoting the bible I just said no one needs. I'm not quoting it because it's authoritative but am quoting it because it articulates what is self-evident!
Do no harm. Love your neighbor whether they be friend of foe. Every creature in humanity stands or falls before God by that one simple precept… just as they did for 15 centuries before anyone (save a handful of power brokers) had a bible.
Everyone know in their hearts and minds “I shouldn't screw that guy over.” NO one knows in their heart or mind “I should keep some obscure feast I've never heard of” or “I shouldn't work on a Saturday.”
The irony is how a people ostensibly immersed in the bible have so little recognition or grasp of what the new covenant says.
I'm not going to insert it here but go ahead and read Hebrews 8 quoting Jeremiah 31 regarding the new covenant.
“No more will men teach one another “know the Lord” for they'll all know me.”
How does one know God without a teacher (that also means without a bible)?
They know him through their conscience. They meet him in his temple.” If one doesn't know God internally, one certainly isn't going to know him through ritual or laws.
The only law to be fulfilled is to love one another… and no one needs a bible, new covenant writings or old, to understand love… they only have to be still enough to get honest within themselves.
God is in his character, not necessarily in the religions that bear his name. Incidentally, there was a reason why Jesus broke with Judaism - choosing to interpret Moses according to the spirit rather than the letter.
Sergio, I really don't know if I just agreed or disagreed with you. Frankly I didn't really understand much of what you were saying and that which I just wrote was more in response to a “Jewish roots” comment. “Jewish roots” is like the pinnacle of religious nonsense in my book…
I mean, I don't care if people worship Ganesh or Zeus as long as they love their neighbors as theirselves. But they find God in the loving, not in the religious practice.
Same with Jewish roots. Go for it if one can fulfill the law by loving one's neighbor. But no one is going to find God in the religious practice of Sabbath keeping, etc.
If God could be found in such things, the system wouldn’t have needed to be irrevocably destroyed in favor of a new system whereby God is known from within oneself, not by instruction.
Jesus didn't rewrite the law, he put it in perspective.
To love one's neighbor as one's self is the PROOF before heaven and earth that one loves God with all their being.
All other appearances are just that - appearances.
I was pretty certain of that. I was wondering if I agreed or disagreed with you regarding the need for Torah at all.
I mean, if "when those without the law do by nature what the requires, they are a law unto themselves...
they show that the work of the law is
*written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them* (this is an outright paraphrase of the new covenant. No written Torah required).
If Torah is written in our hearts and minds, what need of written Torah? I mean, I can see where people may prefer the ritual aspect for whatever reason - but there's no *need* for it... right?
Eric, this is a widely taught misreading and worth slowing for.
Paul’s Greek in Romans 2:14-15 is precise. He says Gentiles have “the work of the law” (ergon tou nomou) written on their hearts. The WORK. Singular. The ethical effect of the law, the moral witness. Not “the law.” Not “the Ten Commandments.” Not “Torah.” Universal moral capacity, not Torah-on-heart.
Paul’s whole argument in Romans 1-3 concludes at 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short.” Conscience does not exempt anyone. It accuses everyone. That is why Paul brings it up. He is closing the Gentile excuse “we never had the law,” not opening an exemption.
Jeremiah 31:33 is a different verse doing different work. HaShem will write His Torah (Torati, MY Torah) on hearts. Same Torah. Same content He gave at Sinai. Now internalized in the covenant community so the will itself loves what was given. Not “no Torah needed.” Torah internalized.
A note on the Ten Commandments specifically. The idea that you can separate “the moral law” from “the ceremonial” and “the civil” and keep only the first as binding is Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II. It is a medieval scholastic invention. The Torah does not divide itself this way. The same Vayikra (Leviticus) 19 that says “do not steal” says “honor the Sabbath.” That category is a tradition of men. It is not the text.
Eric, here is the common dilemma in your position.
Every text you have cited is from the Bible. Romans 13. Romans 2. Hebrews 8. Jeremiah 31. “Love your neighbor” is a direct quote of Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:18. You are using Scripture’s authority to argue we do not need Scripture. Either the Bible has authority and we need it, or it does not and your citations carry no weight. You cannot sit in the middle.
Here is why you keep getting caught in that loop. The word doing all the work in your reading is “law,” and it is not the Hebrew word. The Hebrew is Torah, from the root yarah, which means to aim, to point, to teach. Same word for an archer aiming an arrow and for a father showing his kid how to do something. Torah is closer to “a parent’s teaching” than to “the law of the land.”
When your English Bible says “law,” what is under it is Torah. The translators had to pick something, and “law” was a problem from day one. It carries everything English speakers hear in that word: statutes, prohibitions, the opposite of grace, the thing you are supposed to be freed from. None of that is in Torah. That is baggage we brought to the translation.
Here we go…
“Show me someone with Torah on their heart who never had a Bible.” If Torah is civic law, fair question. If Torah is the Father’s teaching to His covenant family, it dissolves. Jeremiah 31 is not about universal moral intuition. It is HaShem writing His teaching into His covenant people, on top of the teaching He already gave them.
“Fulfillment of the law requires NOT doing certain things.” If law is statute, that fits. Statutes are prohibitions. If Torah is the Father’s teaching, the picture changes. “Love HaShem with all your heart.” “Honor the Sabbath.” “Care for the stranger because you were a stranger in Egypt.” Those are not prohibitions. They are positive directions a Father gives a family He is raising.
I am not pushing my framing on you. I am pointing out you are already using one, a Western one, that the Hebrew does not use.
Try the reset. Read the verses with “the Father’s teaching” wherever your translation says “the law.”
Ps. If "love your neighbor" is Torah (which it is) - what are we debating? No one needs a bible to recognize "I should love my neighbor, whether friend or foe."
No one needs a bible to be a good Samaritan (care for the stranger). Frankly, I don't see why anyone would even refer to any of that as "Torah" rather than merely "love your neighbor" (as that IS the "law and prophets")... "Torah" is just some kind of obfuscation.
It's when people start talking "Jewish/Hebrew roots" where things start to get wonky and religious.
As someone who came out of the Institutionalized Church, I can emphatically tell you that my walk has been truly enriched beyond measure since embracing the Jewish Roots of my faith.
I'm grateful that Israel is God's nation for eternity. I'm grateful to be grafted in. I'm thankful that God spoke directly to these people for my posterity.
For those who refute Torah, you are refuting something that is eternally Holy. It is written upon our hearts. Please don't discard it!
Everything God does, says and breathes cannot just be set aside and ignored.
The Lord set his appointed times in Leviticus for all to celebrate in remembrance of this ongoing revelation of Torah!
DON'T DISMISS WHAT IS HOLY!
Amen!
Sergio, this was beautiful, and I agree with the main concern: Torah should never be reduced to a sterile list of commandments, nor should Christians treat it as something embarrassing that needs to be escaped.
But I want to press the category a little.
Is Torah best described as “the Father’s letter to humanity,” or as covenant instruction given specifically to Israel, through whom the nations are meant to behold the wisdom, justice, holiness, and mercy of Israel’s God?
That distinction matters, especially when Jeremiah 31 enters the discussion. The new covenant promise is not addressed generically to humanity, but to the house of Israel and the house of Judah specifically. The Torah written on the heart is covenant restoration language with Israel, not individual devotional language.
I also agree that Matthew 7’s *anomia* should not be softened into vague “bad behavior.” It is covenantal lawlessness. But I would be cautious about making it mean simply “without Torah,” as though Yeshua’s warning is only about Torah observance. The issue seems deeper: those of Israel claiming his name while living outside the allegiance, order, and covenant faithfulness to their God.
So I am with you that Torah is about knowing God. I would just want to keep the covenant frame firmly underneath it. Torah is not merely a love letter floating free from covenant. It is the instruction of the covenant King to His redeemed people Israel, revealing His heart and His order so that Israel, and through Israel, the nations may know Him.
Alyson, you just made the post better than I did.
You're right. "Father's letter to humanity" is an intentionally wide entry point. The post was built to provoke, not to land the full covenant frame. I have a longer post that I was going to unpack that very thing on my main website, but thank you for calling it out.
The precision you're bringing is exactly correct. Torah is covenant instruction to Israel. The nations don't receive it as their own covenant document. They behold it. Israel's faithful observance was always meant to be the testimony that drew the nations toward the covenant King. That's the missional architecture of the whole thing and most of Christianity missed it entirely because they inherited a framework that cut Israel out of the story.
Your Jeremiah 31 point is the one I want to sit with publicly. The new covenant promise is addressed to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not to the church. Not to generic humanity. Covenant restoration language with a specific people. The ekklesia gets grafted into that story. It doesn't replace it. Amen Amen Amen!
And the anomia deepening is fair. Covenantal lawlessness isn't just Torah non-observance. It's the posture of claiming the King's name while living outside allegiance to his order. That's a sharper and more honest read.
Come back and press often. This is exactly what the table is for.
Shalom!!
Thank you, Sergio. I genuinely receive that with humility.
This is exactly the kind of table conversation I love that where the beauty of what is being said can be honored, and the covenant frame can be sharpened without anyone needing to defend territory.
I also deeply appreciate your willingness to keep Israel, the nations, Torah, and covenant restoration in their proper places. That is where the whole story becomes so much richer to me.
And yes, I may come back and press again from time to time. Gently and respectfully, of course. 😊
Love it 💙💙💙
Deuteronomy 4:7-8: "For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?"
Let's not forget that 603 of these laws are from the Rabbinic traditions. It's the same mess I left in The Institutionalized Church. Traditions of men flow from both ends!
https://www.sergiodesoto.com/posts/the-torah-you-can-keep-today-jew-gentile
Thanks so much!!
Ha… I need to find the other article for you Scott. They are all in there and valid. The Pharisees built fences around the ones God provided. I’ll look 👀
Sergio it appears you need to do a teaching on The Ten WORDS…
I will add that to my ever-expanding list, my friend. lol
No worries. Pretty sure I can handle this one!
I wouldn’t take it personal, Scott, I do think there’s probably a good topic to unpack there 😉
I appreciate it when people speak directly rather than indirectly! I'm not offended. Life goes on.
Beautiful. And beautifully brilliant. And the part about creation shouting at us announcing who He is? 100%! I have felt Him all my life. Even before I knew - anything. Ty. 🙏🏻
"It is a love letter from the Maker of the universe to the humanity He made." Too many people reply with a "Dear John letter". Thank you for opening eyes and ears. Grateful for your gift.
Hey Sergio
Ive been sitting with your Substack post and also found the longer piece “the torah you can keep today” and I have a few questions. I’m on a deep dive to recover some of the reformed/penal sub language imposed on the Christian experience with the Hebrew context.
On anomia first, I want to make sure Im reading it correctly… the Hebrew anchor from the Hebraic tool suggests its a life lived off the path YHWH instructed. Torah being the mark revealed, the sign that connects you to the highest, and anomia the arrow that misses entirely. He’s not describing a believer who isn’t keeping Torah, He is describing a life lived off the covenant path. Is that a correct reading on my end?
On taher and kaphar, Ive been sitting with these roots from the word ‘purging’ as I dig into sanctification and the fulfilment of animal sacrifice. I want to ask if I am reaching or whether this is a genuine connection - taher pictographically is the lifting/cleaning of clinging mud. Ongoing continuous, layer after layer surfaced and cleaned out. And kaphar as the pitch smeared on Noahs ark, a protective sealing, the vessel made waterproof so the judgement water couldn’t come in. Im wondering if taher points to ongoing sanctification and kaphar the once for all covering / justfication?
Two things working together, the kaphar making the taher possible because the vessel is sealed so there’s no condemnation, and the sanctification work can go deeper and deeper, layer by layer. Am I connecting dots that don’t belong together?
There seems to be a tension between two pieces of your writing. This post reads as person and relationship centred, “come and read the fathers letter, come know Him” but your website piece “the torah you can keep today reads as practice centred - “here’s what’s binding, here’s the invitation pick one and start…” Im not sure you have reconciled those anywhere, and one is relational but the other is leaning into works based.
Tripartite framework - I noticed the study tool says that the moral/ceremonial division comes from a Thomistic framework found nowhere in the Hebrew text, but the website piece “the Torah you can keep today” uses exactly that framework to explain what applies today. Is that framework doing the very thing the study tool critiques?
On gentiles - you say a gentile isn’t obligated to keep the whole torah, but is invited to go deeper by engaging with moral and civil principles… but whether you say “don’t do it as law, do it as covenant” you’d still be doing/keeping something either way. The framing, law vs covenant doesn’t change the activity. And if a gentile can choose which ones to engage with and to leave then who decides that? If the torah doesn’t divide itself into categories and Yeshua says not one yod will pass, then someone is making editorial decisions about Gods instruction… isn’t that fence building from the other direction?
On sexual faithfulness - specifically in your article the torah you can keep today you list this as a moral law reflecting Gods eternal character binding on everyone. if sexual faithfulness is written into who He is, and His Spirit lives inside a believer, wouldn’t that person be experiencing conviction around it, from within? Not because they read the law, but because His nature pressing on theirs makes settling into casual unfaithfulness increasingly difficult without conviction? As with all moral laws, I’m questioning whether “practice it as covenant” adds anything to what the Spirit is already producing in someone genuinely walking with Him.
Acts 15 - I’m under the impression the council wasn’t addressing the whole world. Was it not a specific pastoral response to a specific controversy, whether gentiles need to be circumcised? Were those four requirements at the council meant to be a comprehensive gentile torah framework for all time?
And finally, you say he carries what we couldn’t carry. He writes what we couldn’t write. What I have been experiencing looks something like faith as emunah - a steady returning rather than doctrinal compliance and law keeping. Something that might be taher happening from the inside, clinging layers surfaced one at a time. The vessel, my vessel held by what might be kaphar - sealed, no condemnation so He can keep going deeper. And the davar cutting to the lev, not pointing to the behaviour but getting underneath.
And I believe Torah as davar, living covenant speech that always does what it says, is necessary for that process to happen. Not as a checklist for righteousness but as the instrument. Because my conviction hasn’t come from the Spirit working independently of the Word, it comes from hearing it studying it, praying it. Isaiah 55:11 - it doesn’t return void. Hebrew 4:12 - living and active cutting to the lev. The word seems to be what the spirit uses to do the “lifting”.
So maybe the question is not to keep the torah or not, maybe its are you hearing it, receiving it and letting it cut?
I don’t think torah is abolished. I think keeping it is from the inside now. being taught from within. By Himself. Through His Word. With grace to make mistakes. With His covering making the ongoing lifting possible. His Spirit causing us to walk in it - not straining to keep it but Him producing it from within.
So if something like that is already happening in someone genuinely walking in this - what are we actually being called to beyond receiving His life and responding to what He's already producing in us?
And underneath all of it - are you saying keep the Torah or not?
Thank you :)
Chloe,
First off, thank you. You did something for that piece I could not do for it myself.
I have to be completely honest with you Chloe. The clarity I have now was not there when I wrote that original post. It came together over the last few months, and what stings is that I had just handed that older version to @Scott Cooper , he was asking me this exact thing. Your questions sent me back to check it. It most certainly had issues.
So…… I spent the afternoon revising, ending up rewriting it, and your name is on it now, see the intro.
https://www.sergiodesoto.com/post/the-torah-you-can-keep-today-jew-gentile
Your comment hit my feed while I was finalizing a deeper piece on this very subject, and that old post did not reflect what the new one was already saying either. You did not catch one stray article. You caught me mid-turn, right as the whole thing was coming into focus. I do not think that was timing. I think it was divine intervention 😉.
As I promised, let me address your questions.
On anomia, you have it: a life lived structurally off the covenant path, not a believer who missed an observance. One refinement that makes it stronger, the "arrow that misses" is chatat, hamartia, missing the mark. Anomia is a- (without) plus nomos (Torah). Not a bad shot, no path at all. Anomia and the failure of yada are the same failure.
On taher and kaphar, you are not reaching. Kaphar's first appearance in Scripture is the pitch on Noah's ark, the covering that keeps the judgment-water out, the Hebrew teaching you what atonement is. One caution so no one can take it from you: kaphar in the Torah was repeated, and the once-for-all is what Yeshua did with it, not what the root means alone. But your instinct, the covering making the deeper cleansing possible, is exactly the shape of it. I put your words in the rewrite: His covering making the ongoing lifting possible. That is yours.
On the tension you felt, you were right, and it was not a small detail. The old piece used the moral, ceremonial, civil framework, which my own study tool calls Thomistic. You caught me running on a framework I critique elsewhere. And your sharpest point, who decides which a Gentile keeps: you do not curate a checklist at all. You receive the whole letter and read all of it for His heart, even the parts you will never physically walk. The old framing was fence-building from the other direction, and you saw it.
On Acts 15, exactly right. An entry threshold, not a finished Gentile Torah. Verse 21, Moses read every Sabbath, is the open door, not a closed canon.
The most important part, you asked whether the Ruach needs the Word or moves alone. Your own experience answered it. The Ruach is His breath, not a second voice beside Him, and that breath moves through the Word, not around it. Isaiah 55:11, Hebrews 4:12, living and active, cutting to the lev. I added a section to the rewrite for exactly this. You prompted it.
So…. Am I saying keep the Torah or not? Yes. But from the very core of who you are now, the way a son keeps his father's ways because he has come to want them, produced by His Ruach, through the Word, with grace to fumble and walk it again next week. Not a checklist. Him, writing Himself on you, using His own letter to do it.
What you described, emunah as a steady returning, taher from the inside, the davar cutting underneath the behavior, that is not you wondering if you are doing it right. That is it happening. Keep letting it cut..deep.
Shalom, and thank you again!
Your brother, Sergio
Hey Sergio,
Thank you so much for this. Praise the Lord.
It seems we have both been on a journey to articulate the same thing from different angles. I'm so glad I messaged you and came across your post. I didn't mean to catch you out, but I've been consuming a lot of your content lately and I'm grateful that through these conversations we both get to refine our understanding and move forward with greater clarity.
What a gift!
I'm so encouraged because I feel like I now have a much firmer grasp of these words, at least as they relate to salvation and the way I share the gospel. The biggest blessing for me has been discovering that the Hebrew concepts seem to describe what God has been doing all along in my own walk and reveal His heart in the process. It's felt like an undoing of doctrines and frameworks that had previously laid over the experience, allowing me to see more clearly what He was actually doing all along.
Being able to articulate the experience of salvation through that lens has been incredibly encouraging.
I'll definitely note what you said about kaphar... that the sacrifices themselves were ongoing and that the "once for all" aspect isn't in the root alone. That makes sense.
Thank you again, brother. I'm greatly encouraged by this conversation, and I look forward to reading, learning and gleaning more.
Chloe
Chloe, you've pointed out a number of things I need to go back to and make sure I'm coherent and aligned across. That piece was written a while back, and your reading is sharp enough that I'd rather take time and respond well than respond quickly. Give me a little, and I'll come back to you with a real engagement. Grateful you wrote this. 🙏
Awesome thanks Sergio!
You caught some really good things I need to adjust, thank you! 🙏
Love this, Sergio. Our God is not about putting heavy burdens on us in giving tons of rules…Torah is all about relationship. He wants us to know him and walk with him. So very true.
It’s becoming more and more clear…covenant in the garden, covenant on the mountain, covenant on the cross, fully restored covenant in the new heavens and earth
Thank you
Thank you for this Sergio! It is a Love letter and a Treasure Map. Sometimes it can be tricky navigating but then am reminded The Way is revealed when we earnestly Seek! Shalom😊
Sergio and the commentators on this thread,
I come to this thread late, and scholastically unprepared. You are all so far beyond me in your studies. But you open up so many doors for me! I love the conversations that are generated.
Thank you all for your thoughts and your questions. My mind is stimulated and hungry to explore God's word. I need to sit with all of this.
Linda
Thank you Linda,I love that you are hungry!! 🙏 That is what this is all about!
Thank you for sharing this.
I have benefited from all your posts.
I always appreciate your comments, Jeff. You're very welcome.
Wonderful. This has been the focus of my life for the past three and a half decades or so—coming to know the Lord. Your analysis opens things up to me and lets the whole thing fall into a more solid place.
You still skip Ezekiel 36 where the Father promises to give us Ruach HaKodesh living inside of us to enable us to walk it out. What gets me is that even as a spirit-filled believer I just have a glimpse of how good it is going to be once we get to be with Him forever. As I have said many times, I see this as the consummation experience in our marriage to the Lamb with our new spiritual bodies. Then we shall know as we are known.
Alleluia! The marriage supper of the Lamb is almost unimaginable. I saw glimpses of it with my marriage to past. Through a glass darkly, indeed. But we will be one with our Messiah the way He is one with the Father—all of us One. I can hardly wait.
Matthew 7:23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
— among some legalists within Sabbatarian congregations of believers in Jesus/Yahshua, this verse has been used to claim that those observing the pagan days of worship adopted into mainstream Christianity will be treated the same as any out right unrepentant heathen. such a mindset doesn't take into account that Jesus/Yahshua here does not say repentance is prohibited, however, some apparently have interpreted it so. for that matter, most all of mainstream Christianity and even many Sabbatarian congregations have interpreted likewise of the second resurrection. in my view, many believers will be pleasantly surprised in the end, for YHWH is a God of love & mercy, and all too often we tend to forget that.
Yes! The bible articulates things very well!
But NO ONE needs a bible to understand that love is the "fulfillment" of God's law. No one needs a bible to fulfill that law. The bible is just a language that many are familiar with at this point...
Frankly, rhe world would be more Godly if people spent more time considering how they and the groups they join effect others rather than naval gazing about which day their deity prefers to be worshipped or what religious feast they should or should not keep... etc etc.
Who cares? Love your neighbor... it's the ONLY *proof* that one loves God with all their being. The bible doesn't make that so... the bible says it *because* it is so.
Aren't all the laws and instruction revolving around the temple part of Torah? They are. Why sis God irrevocably destroy the temple? Because those things don't matter! What they were meant to *signify* matters... and that time has already come.
I assume we are agreed that no one is going to recognize Saturday is a "sabbath" without a bible though - correct. It's not written in their heart or mind... it is written elsewhere. Or, you are going to give an actual example of someone who "keeps torah" without a bible or teacher - going only by their heart and mind.
I never say the bible is useless, I say it is absolutely not necessary to know God... and that it often does more harm than good when combined with the religious will worship of men.
Eric, your dilemma is back. You are using the Bible's account of the temple's destruction as the authority for why we do not need the Bible. The exact same loop.
No one needs a Bible to know the temple was destroyed or that Judaism/Torah revolves around the temple.
How can Torah be kept without the temple it requires?
Unless it is a figure for something spiritual, not letter-al(literal).?
Who needs the Torah whatsoever? I mean, what do obscure Hebrew (or Greek) Scriptures have anything to do with anyone?
No one would even have those Scriptures if it weren't for a power hungry institution and a team of Pharisees (who else was versed in Hebrew in the 1500's?).
What I'm getting at is this:
“The commandments “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” -Romans 13:8-10.
Yes I am quoting the bible I just said no one needs. I'm not quoting it because it's authoritative but am quoting it because it articulates what is self-evident!
Do no harm. Love your neighbor whether they be friend of foe. Every creature in humanity stands or falls before God by that one simple precept… just as they did for 15 centuries before anyone (save a handful of power brokers) had a bible.
Everyone know in their hearts and minds “I shouldn't screw that guy over.” NO one knows in their heart or mind “I should keep some obscure feast I've never heard of” or “I shouldn't work on a Saturday.”
The irony is how a people ostensibly immersed in the bible have so little recognition or grasp of what the new covenant says.
I'm not going to insert it here but go ahead and read Hebrews 8 quoting Jeremiah 31 regarding the new covenant.
“No more will men teach one another “know the Lord” for they'll all know me.”
How does one know God without a teacher (that also means without a bible)?
They know him through their conscience. They meet him in his temple.” If one doesn't know God internally, one certainly isn't going to know him through ritual or laws.
The only law to be fulfilled is to love one another… and no one needs a bible, new covenant writings or old, to understand love… they only have to be still enough to get honest within themselves.
God is in his character, not necessarily in the religions that bear his name. Incidentally, there was a reason why Jesus broke with Judaism - choosing to interpret Moses according to the spirit rather than the letter.
Sergio, I really don't know if I just agreed or disagreed with you. Frankly I didn't really understand much of what you were saying and that which I just wrote was more in response to a “Jewish roots” comment. “Jewish roots” is like the pinnacle of religious nonsense in my book…
I mean, I don't care if people worship Ganesh or Zeus as long as they love their neighbors as theirselves. But they find God in the loving, not in the religious practice.
Same with Jewish roots. Go for it if one can fulfill the law by loving one's neighbor. But no one is going to find God in the religious practice of Sabbath keeping, etc.
If God could be found in such things, the system wouldn’t have needed to be irrevocably destroyed in favor of a new system whereby God is known from within oneself, not by instruction.
Jesus didn't rewrite the law, he put it in perspective.
To love one's neighbor as one's self is the PROOF before heaven and earth that one loves God with all their being.
All other appearances are just that - appearances.
Anyway, sorry to rant in your comments.
Eric
I hate to say it this way brother, but you missed the point.
I was pretty certain of that. I was wondering if I agreed or disagreed with you regarding the need for Torah at all.
I mean, if "when those without the law do by nature what the requires, they are a law unto themselves...
they show that the work of the law is
*written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts either accusing or defending them* (this is an outright paraphrase of the new covenant. No written Torah required).
If Torah is written in our hearts and minds, what need of written Torah? I mean, I can see where people may prefer the ritual aspect for whatever reason - but there's no *need* for it... right?
Eric, this is a widely taught misreading and worth slowing for.
Paul’s Greek in Romans 2:14-15 is precise. He says Gentiles have “the work of the law” (ergon tou nomou) written on their hearts. The WORK. Singular. The ethical effect of the law, the moral witness. Not “the law.” Not “the Ten Commandments.” Not “Torah.” Universal moral capacity, not Torah-on-heart.
Paul’s whole argument in Romans 1-3 concludes at 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short.” Conscience does not exempt anyone. It accuses everyone. That is why Paul brings it up. He is closing the Gentile excuse “we never had the law,” not opening an exemption.
Jeremiah 31:33 is a different verse doing different work. HaShem will write His Torah (Torati, MY Torah) on hearts. Same Torah. Same content He gave at Sinai. Now internalized in the covenant community so the will itself loves what was given. Not “no Torah needed.” Torah internalized.
A note on the Ten Commandments specifically. The idea that you can separate “the moral law” from “the ceremonial” and “the civil” and keep only the first as binding is Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II. It is a medieval scholastic invention. The Torah does not divide itself this way. The same Vayikra (Leviticus) 19 that says “do not steal” says “honor the Sabbath.” That category is a tradition of men. It is not the text.
Shalom
Maybe this will help: show me someone, anyone, who has Torah on their heart, never having had a bible or bible teacher.
I mean, aside from not "doing harm to a neighbor" (Romans 3:8-10).
Note: I always find it curious that fulfillment of the law requires NOT doing certain things vs. doing certain things.
Eric, here is the common dilemma in your position.
Every text you have cited is from the Bible. Romans 13. Romans 2. Hebrews 8. Jeremiah 31. “Love your neighbor” is a direct quote of Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:18. You are using Scripture’s authority to argue we do not need Scripture. Either the Bible has authority and we need it, or it does not and your citations carry no weight. You cannot sit in the middle.
Here is why you keep getting caught in that loop. The word doing all the work in your reading is “law,” and it is not the Hebrew word. The Hebrew is Torah, from the root yarah, which means to aim, to point, to teach. Same word for an archer aiming an arrow and for a father showing his kid how to do something. Torah is closer to “a parent’s teaching” than to “the law of the land.”
When your English Bible says “law,” what is under it is Torah. The translators had to pick something, and “law” was a problem from day one. It carries everything English speakers hear in that word: statutes, prohibitions, the opposite of grace, the thing you are supposed to be freed from. None of that is in Torah. That is baggage we brought to the translation.
Here we go…
“Show me someone with Torah on their heart who never had a Bible.” If Torah is civic law, fair question. If Torah is the Father’s teaching to His covenant family, it dissolves. Jeremiah 31 is not about universal moral intuition. It is HaShem writing His teaching into His covenant people, on top of the teaching He already gave them.
“Fulfillment of the law requires NOT doing certain things.” If law is statute, that fits. Statutes are prohibitions. If Torah is the Father’s teaching, the picture changes. “Love HaShem with all your heart.” “Honor the Sabbath.” “Care for the stranger because you were a stranger in Egypt.” Those are not prohibitions. They are positive directions a Father gives a family He is raising.
I am not pushing my framing on you. I am pointing out you are already using one, a Western one, that the Hebrew does not use.
Try the reset. Read the verses with “the Father’s teaching” wherever your translation says “the law.”
See what happens.
Ps. If "love your neighbor" is Torah (which it is) - what are we debating? No one needs a bible to recognize "I should love my neighbor, whether friend or foe."
No one needs a bible to be a good Samaritan (care for the stranger). Frankly, I don't see why anyone would even refer to any of that as "Torah" rather than merely "love your neighbor" (as that IS the "law and prophets")... "Torah" is just some kind of obfuscation.
It's when people start talking "Jewish/Hebrew roots" where things start to get wonky and religious.