The Truth About Why Your Pastor Really Doesn’t Know His Bible
What the Hebrew Scriptures actually say about the New Covenant—and why Yeshua came to destroy religious systems, not build new ones...
Some of you read the earlier version of this essay last October. It was softer. I was being polite. I was protecting something I should have been examining.I went back to the text, and the text did not return the favor.
The full essay is live now on my site. It is sharper, restructured from the ground up, and it makes a case I can no longer soften without lying to you. What follows here is the spine of that argument. If it unsettles you, good. The full piece will finish the job.
The Three Titles
Yeshua (Jesus) banned three titles in Mattityahu (Matthew) 23:8–10. Not discouraged. Not cautioned against. Banned.
Rabbi. Do not let yourselves be called it. You have one teacher.
Father. Do not call anyone on earth by it. You have one Father, and He is in heaven.
Leader. Do not let yourselves be called it. You have one guide, and He is Mashiach (Messiah).
Three titles. Three prohibitions. One singular chain: the Father is in heaven, the guide is Mashiach (Messiah), and everyone else is achim (brothers). Equals at the same table.
Now walk into any church in the Western world. What do you find?
Titles. Stages. A man between you and the text.
The very structure Yeshua dismantled, rebuilt and renamed and called ministry.
The Singular Chain
The full essay traces the Hebrew and Greek beneath these titles and follows a thread most pulpits will not touch. The thread runs from Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) 31 through 1 Timothy 2:5 through Hebrews 10:19–22, and it says one thing with absolute clarity: the New Covenant eliminates the mediator class.
Yirmeyahu (Jeremiah) promised it. Every believer would know HaShem (the Name, God) directly. Not through a priest. Not through a pastor. Not through a seminary graduate standing between you and the scroll. Directly.
Sha’ul (Paul) confirmed it. One mediator between God and humanity. One. The man Yeshua (Jesus) the Mashiach (Messiah).
The writer of Hebrews sealed it. The parokhet (the veil) tore. The way into the Holiest Place is open. Not reformed. Not rerouted through a new priesthood wearing business casual. Open.
That is the singular chain of the New Covenant. And the institutional church broke every link.
The full essay names how, names when, and names the specific theological system that claims sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) while operating on sola traditio (tradition alone) in a Geneva gown. That section alone will cost me subscribers. I wrote it anyway.
The Question the Essay Asks
Here is what the full piece drives toward, and I will not resolve it here because you need to sit with it yourself:
If the parokhet (the veil) tore from top to bottom, and if God Himself did the tearing, and if the entire sacrificial mediation system was rendered complete in that single act...
Then what exactly are we rebuilding every Sunday morning? And who told us to rebuild it?
Those are not rhetorical questions. The essay answers them with specific texts, specific history, and a specific charge. The charge is not gentle. It was not meant to be.
What the Full Essay Covers
The full piece on sergiodesoto.com walks through the Hebrew behind moreh (teacher) and zaqen (elder), the Greek behind kathēgētēs (guide) and presbuteros (elder) and episkopos (overseer), the historical chain from Ignatius to Constantine to the Westminster Confession, and the moment the Reformation had every tool it needed to tear down the clerical hierarchy and chose to keep the man behind the pulpit in a different outfit instead.
It closes with the parokhet (the veil). That is where the argument lands, and that is where it should land for you too.
Read the full essay here: Your Pastor Doesn’t Know His Bible — The Veil Tore. The Church Sewed It Back. And Nobody Asked Why.
If you are a paid subscriber, the companion Behind the Text piece walks through the drafting decisions, the footnotes that were pulled from the published version, and why the architecture of the essay was rebuilt from scratch. If Hebrew word studies are your thing, a Root study tied to this piece is on the way.
If you want to support this work but the paid tier is not in your budget right now, that is completely fine. Stay on the free list. Read the full essays on the site. Share them. That matters more than a subscription.
And if this is the kind of table you want to sit at, the door is open: buymeacoffee.com/mrdesoto. Every dollar goes directly to people in crisis. No overhead. No salaries. No building fund.
Shalom v’shalvah — your brother in the Way,
Sergio
Yes. Also Christianity has censored many of the writings of men they claim as spiritual fathers by either not publishing or editing out topics that do not comform to the Christian church consensus. I attended a university with a library of original journals and writings of many historically famous "preachers" or "pastors" from a couple hundred years ago. As a new believer in Yeshua with no church indoctrination or bias, although I primarily read the Bible, I was curious and read these old writings by spiritual and intellectual giants and discovered that for example Sunday and Christmas and Easter were not honored by them but considered pagan holidays, and that Saturday was considered the Sabbath. There were hand written sermons by people such as John Wesley on keeping the sabbath and on it being sunset to sunset on Saturday. These books could not be checked out but had to be read with gloves on in the attic of the university library. In my ignorance I decided to buy "best of" books by some of these preachers from a Christian bookstore and discovered the censorship. Thankfully I was attending a church that emphasized getting fed from the Word on your own, and never relying on someone else to tell you what it says, but know for yourself what it says. Hearing the sermon or teaching at church should only confirm to you what the Holy Spirit already showed you in the Word at home. So I studied Hebrew and became proficient enough to translate the scriptures myself and receive academic honors for it. There is no church or Messianic congregation or Hebrew Roots fellowship I have found in my region that is teaching this way and discerning the lies.
The Truth is a joy. It's all about the Holy Spirit in us, writing the Torah on our heart. The institutional church is not Biblical. The priesthood of all believers erases the seminary-trained clergical elite. A spectator church is anathema.