Examining current evidence of the early Church, that is the Church of the first few hundred years which existed directly after the Book of Acts, we discover political conflicts that house themselves within doctrinal issues. One apparent loser in this power struggle is the Gnostics. But when we examine them more closely, we find that Gnosticism actually has a logic of faith that bears the Jewish signature. And if you came to faith under their cover and instruction, you would be blissfully Gnostic. This observation should make us question the rightness of the winner of those doctrinal wars, which has transmitted to us our current piety. For our own sense of bliss and rightness may not have any more authority than did the faith of the Gnostics.

    There were, undoubtedly, serious flaws within many of the theologies that competed at that time. But in truth, the failure of the various sects might be due to their not being as aggressive in an industrial sense as were the Orthodox. Consequently, the Catholic Church prevailed from within Orthodoxy with a sophisticated central structure of government. Every group had a Pastor, every group of Pastors had a Bishop, and all the Bishops had a conference of Elders, who in turn submitted to the High Bishop and Elder -- being the Pope. This system of spiritual rule became very strong, influencing very wealthy patrons, and through their structure and resources they were allowed to impose their Orthodoxy upon most believers.

    After 300 years, they are the ones that established the Canon of Scripture, and they are the ones that propagated the Gospel from country to country, impacting even the highest governmental levels of many Kings and Rulers. But their zeal for self-rightness also resulted in their committing murders and massacres throughout our histories -- killing many that might effectively oppose them. And that network is what the Protestants eventually broke away from, and that is what caused America to break from the Rule of Kings as well. Likewise, it caused America to develop and support mixed Religions that were independent of its own secular government and civil control.

    Today, being in America, and being unaffiliated with organized denominations, Messianics are in the process of removing themselves once more from that evolution of Orthodoxy. When the first Orthodoxy had canonized Scripture, they were separating from variant Gospel traditions and theologies, and also asserting their own beliefs as being superior and independently correct. Moreover, in doing so, they prized their own spiritual system as being superior to Judaism, and severed the Gospel from the Torah and Jewish Traditions altogether.

    They accomplished this with the Canon of Scripture, asserting that their selection of documents were the Inerrant Scriptures. They also secured this choice by destroying most of the documents that were deliberately excluded. In most cases this was understandable, and to be appreciated, for many of the documents were either fabrications or they were seriously corrupted with inserted opinions, ie. they were heresies. Yet when their selections might have contained similar insertions that rebutted those other sources, they still allowed them into the Canon. This is evidenced where the first canonization of the Aramaic Peshito (the Scriptures of the Syriac Orthodoxy) had not included the Second and Third epistles of John, nor the epistles of Second Peter, Jude and Revelation. They were added in a revision done the year 616 AD, but the difference in their earlier choices for their separate cannons was the result of their preference in theologies.

    But the Canon (even both cannons) had cemented a more fundamental separation than simply excluding apparent heresies. For the Roman Orthodoxy had gone much farther in their effort to uniquely qualify the Church. They began to fortify a private agenda of self-rightness by establishing new Holidays. These Holidays were also scheduled so they would be near but never coincide with any Biblical Feast Days. And in doing so, they asserted that the Lord’s Day (Sunday) was superior to the Sabbath (Saturday), and they did not observe any of the Biblical Feast Days (Sabbath included) nor practice any Jewish Traditions.

    Their tact was that the Messiah had liberated them from these mechanical controls over spirituality, and had simultaneously established their own private spiritual norms as the framework for the New Testament of God -- hence the current name for their cherished Canon, the New Testament. And their only link to Torah and Judaism was the severed Messiah and his banished Disciples ... with Peter being the first Pope of their Modern Order.

    But why should they want to assert that Peter was their first Pope? Only because the Messiah had said “Peter is a Rock,” and that “the Church would be established by him” -- and, to put it simply, they had become that Church. Additionally, since they had become the official Church, they could not divorce themselves from either Yeshua (Jesus) or Kefah (Peter).

    But who was Yeshua? By the account of most Gospels he was a man who was observant of Torah throughout his life. Did he ever oppose Torah? No, he said he had come to satisfy the Torah by being faithful with it. Did he oppose Traditions? No, but he did oppose particular traditions. Those that he opposed were traditions that conflicted with Torah. Why? Because he had come to satisfy Torah and honor the Father -- and nothing more.

    Did his disciples also want to satisfy the Torah? Yes. Nowhere in the Gospels, Acts, or Epistles can you find any words or actions that conflicted with Torah -- although many have interpreted their words for that purpose. The issue, however, is that those same words can be understood differently if your agenda is to support Torah. Moreover, to support Torah does not require you to contrive anything -- you only have to be familiar with what Torah actually teaches. But did they honor the Traditions? Yes. They never opposed anything, traditions or doctrines, unless they created a direct conflict with Torah itself.

    Did Peter observe Torah? Yes. The Book of Acts reveals that “unclean things never touched his lips,” meaning he was Kosher, and he worshipped at the Temple in Jerusalem -- and nowhere else, because it is where God had placed his Name. It also tells us that Peter questioned the Apostle Paul as to whether he was being observant, and if he was preaching contrary to Torah. Did he find Paul guilty of blasphemy? No, and he instructed Paul to offer sacrifices at the Temple, and to observe the Nazarite Vow while he remained in Jerusalem. Which is what Paul subsequently did, as a testimony of faithfulness -- and his faithfulness was sincere.

    Did Peter observe the Traditions along with Torah? Yes. The Book of Acts indicates that he would not eat his food in a Gentile’s house, nor fraternize among them -- this is a Tradition and not Torah. Did Peter modify his faithfulness in reference to this tradition? Yes, but he did so reluctantly. He would eat with Gentiles, and fraternize with them for the Gospel’s sake, but “unclean things” would still not touch his lips, and he would not fraternize with Gentiles in every aspect of his life. This is also implicated in the Book of Acts where Paul rebukes him as a hypocrite for his pretense to other Jews -- in that he was avoiding the Gentiles whenever he was in the view of fellow Jews.

    As attested by Yeshua, Peter did become the Elder in Jerusalem, and James “the brother of Yeshua” served as Elder along side him. And obviously, Rav Shaul (Paul) submitted to him as an Elder of the Faith. But Peter never went to Rome, and he would not have had anything to do with a Gentile Orthodoxy that rejected both the Torah and Jewish Traditions. Moreover, I don’t think that Yeshua, the Disciples, or even Paul, would have had anything to do with them either. Because the disciples were preaching Yeshua as our King, and they were not preaching a Political Church that would become manipulators of worldly Kings.

    Furthermore, Paul, in preaching Yeshua, preached the Torah as Yeshua’s authority. He relied upon it for every assertion that he made, and he was earnest to assert the liberties that Torah would support. When these liberties conflicted with Traditions, Paul would aggressively promote the liberties of Torah over them, because to do so was still the promotion of Torah itself. But Paul (Rav Shaul) was a Pharisee and a Rabbi. He studied in the School of Gameliel. His zeal for Orthodoxy had caused him to persecute the Church, and his repentance was a departure from his sin -- not his Religion.

    The Book of Acts tells us that whenever he entered a new Gentile village, he would attend the Synagogue of the Jews before he began preaching to the populace. That is because Judaism was the backbone of his belief. He was in pursuit of faithful and knowledgeable Jews who could assist him as Elders to their Gentile village. He needed them because he was building Torah communities -- and he was building a Judaism that was beautified with the Messiah and the Gospel.

    Rav Shaul’s (Paul’s) Epistles indicate that there was as much a conflict with the Paganism of Gentiles as there was a conflict with Roman Politics and Jewish Traditions. But, in his Epistles, Shaul (Paul) presented more arguments against Paganism than he ever did about politics or traditions. And when he referred to “being free from the law,” he was not talking about the Torah. The Torah was the foundation of the Gospel, and this becomes obvious from a respectful study of the Book of Acts with reflection upon Torah principles.

    Specifically, his Epistle of Romans, Chapter 8, says that “we are free from the law of sin.” He said this to infer that our sin, which Torah by itself could not liberate us from, has been accomplished through the aid of Yeshua the Messiah. He explains that Yeshua, by means of satisfying the Torah, has liberated us from the condemnation that our sin will always invoke -- and, through the dictates of Torah, we have discovered forgiveness for our unfaithfulness by the merit of Yeshua’s own faithfulness.

    Verse 4 of that chapter explains that Yeshua has done this in order that we could fulfill (or satisfy) the Torah as well. That means that we should depart from our sin and live in a manner that conforms to Torah. For the Torah is the production of the Holy Spirit's interaction with similar men of faith, who are those that will comply with God’s instructions. And verse 7 explains that everyone who remains in their sins are not subjecting themselves to the Torah of God -- and by not subjecting themselves to Torah, they cannot please God -- being in open rebellion to his words.

    We have to stay focused on the fact that Rav Shaul is a Jew, a Pharisee and Rabbi, and he did not accept Yeshua as the Messiah of a New Testament. He is the Messiah of the Testament (Torah and Prophets), for there is only one Testament in Rav Shaul’s mind. He preached Yeshua as having invaded time, place and dominion -- beginning with the Land of Israel and God's people, the Jews. And this invasion by Yeshua has been extended, through the Holy Spirit, to be upon every culture and all our generations -- and the purpose of this invasion is to deliver us from our sins, and to strengthen our souls by magnifying the Torah. For no one has been freed from sin in order to allow them to return and continue in their sin. We are liberated from sin so that we may honor the Father and creator of heaven and earth, whom we only know by the testimony of Torah. Indeed, we are liberated to be free from sin so that the honor we bring to the Father is not tainted with a worldly testimony, but immersed within the true words of God.

    So it doesn’t sound to me as if Paul was intentionally building a Catholic Church, except in the sense that Catholic means Universal. But did he build the Universal Orthodoxy that would become the Catholic Industry ... who in turn formulated our innerant” Canon of Scripture? Even when their Canon may have included some dogmatic insertions? The answer is that Paul's epistles are a fundamental part of that Canon despite any insertions. But are Paul’s teachings and the Canon also part of Messianism, if Messianism is stepping away from that structure? I personally think it is a valid and crucial part, because Messiansim is the pursuit of an original voice. A voice that both provoked the Messiah and also supports the voices he has provoked -- which includes Catholic and Protestant Orthodoxy.

    But the reach of Messiansim is the realization that there is no voice that provoked the Messiah other than the Torah. For the Torah is the voice of the Father, the Holy Spirit, and God's people ... who are Israel. With similar form, the voices that the Messiah provoked are his disciples and apostles -- but it is also many who were not as successful as Rav Shaul and the future Orthodoxy that succeeded him. The disciple Thomas had gone to Egypt and provoked the Gnostic faith. John had gone to England and produced the Anglican faith. Others had gone to Persia, India and Asia, and none of these separate industries of the Gospel had completely conformed to the Roman Catholic industry that became Modern Orthodoxy.

    Yet most of American Christianity, by its rebellion to Roman Catholicism, is rooted with that Catholicism by its own adverse reaction to Catholic rule. It is similar to being a Protestant who is not Calvinistic. You may not believe in Calvinism, but most of your doctrines are designed to negate Calvinism -- therefore Calvinism remains with you as your primary influence.

    For this reason I believe that Messianism must not be negative to any form of Christianity or Judaism. In contrast, we have to affirm our faith with a positive connection to God. A connection that is actually God’s attempt to contact us. This will be accomplished by embracing the Torah and the Jewish Traditions that are the support work of Torah. For Torah itself is the only voice that supports the Messiah, and the Messiah is the only voice that will support you and me. Therefore we have to become the voices that will support this same chorus of voices that honor God alone. This submission through Torah is a pristine system of faith, and a faith that is the “saltiness” of the earth. This is the faith that Yeshua said will “shine from a hill”, and the hill is the site of the Temple in Jerusalem.

    The early Church of the first few hundred years is the definition of Messiansim. The prevailing Orthodoxy, after those years, is a departure from what Messianism pursues. The first Church was inflamed with a love for Yeshua and Torah. It was a zeal that provoked jealousy from both Jews and Gentiles. Yeshua, his Disciples and Apostles, were all put to death due to that turbulent jealousy, even though it was also everyone's access to faith. But nothing was able to quench the labor of the Holy Spirit -- not opinion, not doctrine, not politics, and no self-rightness -- nothing can ever un-right the work and intent of God.

    We all interpret our experience with God based on our social struggles. In Egypt, those struggles produced Gnosticism, in Rome and Greece they became Orthodoxy, but all of them were struggling to subject themselves to the Messiah. And it is only when they divorced themselves from each other that the apparent victors and victims both failed at their subjection. The heresies are not our model, but the winner did not go on to model justness either. Our model is Israel, and they are a family of twelve families. They had matured as a nation of twelve states, being those families as Tribes. Yet when the sons of David and Solomon continued to turn on each other with hate, division and idolatry ensued. Our model is the struggle of Yisrael ... and that model demonstrates choices and consequences.

    We really need each other in order to maintain our “saltiness to the earth.” We need our varying viewpoints, and we need to support our private conclusions that still magnify Torah and Yeshua. We can do this through community submission and tolerance. In doing so, we may need to test and abandon some of our assertions, even many, but we must never turn against or away from each other. But how can we do that?

    I suggest, by doing what most of our forefathers never did -- we embrace the Torah and its supportive Traditions. And we allow this community action to become our primary testimony of Yeshua. When we do so, we will be fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah 8:22-23, where he says, "Then they will come, many peoples, and strong nations -- to search out -- Adonai of Hosts within Jerusalem, and to grieve in front of Adonoi. In those days, they will grab hold -- by groups of ten from every language among the Gentiles -- and they (each ten) will take hold of the garment of each Jew, saying, 'We will go with you, because we have heard that Elohim (God) is with you.''

    The garment that the Gentiles will grab is "wing like" according to the Hebrew word, and it is the Tallith. The Tallith (Prayer Shawl) is the signature of Jewish submission to God through their Traditions. God never told Israel to cover themselves with a "Wing Garment", but he did tell them to put tassels on the corners of their garments. The Tallith, having corners, becomes a vehicle for those tassels (Tzitzith). Therefore, the Gentiles will embrace both Torah and Tradition (Torah being the Tzitzith, and Tradition being the Tallith), saying, "We will go with you, because we have heard that Elohim (God) is with you."

    This is Messianism. It is how it started, and it started in Antioch with the Gentiles embracing both the Messiah and the Judaism that the Disciples were living (their traditions) ... and it is how Messianism will prevail.

    Baruch Hashem.