Our Guest Dr. John Garr
Sid: My guest by way of telephone is Dr. John Garr I’m interviewing him this week on his amazing book entitled “Restoring Our Lost Legacy – Christianity’s Hebrew Heritage.” And John before we went on the air I said “What we define as Christianity today is a separation between clergy and laity, and almost a superstar mentality a one man show if you will very entertainment mode.” And yet if at what the Synagogue was like and what Judaism was like in the first Church how did something evolve from the Hebraic roots which was very different to what we have today? And is this what God wants, is this just because times are changing? Or would we be more effective if we went back to our original roots?
John: Well Sid I really believe that there’s a tremendous opportunity for the church in our time I think God is not beginning to challenge the church in many of its communions around the world to seek to restore the original models for corporate interaction and worship that were a part of the 1st century scene in which Jesus and the apostles lived their lives. One of the things that I think is unfortunate is that the church has departed so far from these original models. And in many cases has become essentially a performance based, audience based worship exercise that is carried out maybe once or twice a week and that’s the extent of ones “religious” experience. It’s almost based in some of the original old Greek ideas of separating the secular realm from the spiritual realm, or the material realm from the spiritual realm so that Christians by in large live in 2 different realms. They go to church on Sunday morning, or whenever they have a worship exercise for an hour or two, and they live one way and they watch a performance and the go away feeling secure that every things been done satisfying this particular requirement in their lives. And then they go back and live their secular lives and they have a whole different way of dressing, they have a whole different way of acting, a whole different language, a whole different ethics and morals and everything else that they engage in at those time frames. The problem with all of that is that the performance based Christianity goes back to basically the time of Constantine who was the Roman Emperor, the Emperor of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the 4th Century. And his attempt was to attempt to make Christianity more acceptable and understandable by the people in the Roman realm, and so therefore what had been originally done in the context of community now was done in the context of a huge building. The old ancient Greek Temples were replicated in style as to make a “Christian Church.” So instead of being the church as Jesus originally intended now people were now going to church the building became the church instead of the people. And so the whole ideas of what was what church was all about was tremendously modified.
Sid: Where did the ideas come that the pastor does everything from song leading to taking up the offering to the announcements. I mean unless they have a large church to be being the preacher, the counselor, the one that marries you, the one that buries you. Where did this all come from?
John: Well most people in Christianity obviously would think that it came from the first century church but it absolutely did not and you start researching the history and even the context of scriptures themselves. The idea of one person as being the star personality and the focal point of all activity in a community life or a congregational life was totally foreign to the 1st Century Church. The first century church was built on the Jewish model that placed the importance or the primacy for spiritual development and training in the home first of all. The home itself was the locust or the center for spiritual development and much of the worship exercise of the church was carried out in the context of the home. But when we extended beyond that to having corporate exercises of prayer and worship the church just simply continued to maintain the system and the order that they had been operating all of their lives the apostles certainly and that was in the synagogue environment and the synagogues situation. And this was a very free flowing exercise in which many people were involved in various areas of responsibilities and that’s the reason why there were plurality of elders even in the earliest congregations of Christian believers so that the “power” was not vested in one particular individual was not looked upon as being the star and everything had to revolve around that person. In reality our worship exercise should be revolved around the person of Jesus and the inspiration and operation of the Holy Spirit in the lives of God’s people. So you know when you get outside of that context it’s going to get into an exercise where men exalt themselves and people start looking to men more than they look to God.
Sid: Well you’ve done a extensive studies in the first Church and could you kind of paint a picture of what it was like. Because I have to tell you that even before I became a Jewish believer in Jesus I was a song writer and I wrote a song called “There Must Be Something More.” And of course when I found out that Jesus is in fact the Jewish Messiah and developed intimacy with God and forgiveness of sin and I thought I had arrived. But as I read the Bible and I see the difference between what we call church today and what the vibrancy in the Bible there must be something more. Paint me a picture of what that first Church was like.
John: Well indeed there was much more rather than it’s being a little small segment of the life of the people as it is today and much of Christian experience. The religious life was all of life in the 1st century and it was that way because that was the way in which the Jewish people looked upon life. They saw everything as being theological, everything as being spiritual.
Sid: But what did Jesus mean and John the Baptist mean the kingdom of God when they used that term? What did that mean?
John: Well that’s a big subject we’re going beyond actually what we’re talking about as far as the church is concerned. But the kingdom of God was actually and ruler or the dominion of God being manifest first of all in the lives of individuals and the lives of families and the lives of larger worshiping communities and ultimately in all of society itself. And of course we realize that that never will be fully fulfilled until the Messiah Himself comes both from Christian and Jewish tradition. The Messiah when He comes will bring universal peace. But in the meantime when you talk about community life the church in it local manifestations I think what gave the early church so much power was that it continued to function within the context of those synagogal models. And the model in the synagogue were actually 3 functions within synagogue life that came to be names that were applied to the synagogues in subsequent times. And those 3 functions were first of all the synagogue was a place of meeting later called the Beit Knesset the place of meeting you know the house of meeting. Then it was also called a place of study the House of Study the Beit Midrash. Then finally the synagogue was called the Beit Tefilah, or the House of Prayer. But when you have those 3 functions operating in any community regardless of what you call it there is a balance. First of all, there is a place of social interaction just purely on a human level the meeting together and having relationship and fellowship with each other. Secondly there’s a place for study, and this is the one area that’s been woefully neglected in the Christian Church, is this whole idea that we should be studying together in the context of community and learning God’s word and cascading God’s word into our lives so that we become in affect the word itself manifest because the word is so powerful to us. “Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against Thee.” And again we have missed another profound Jewish idea that says that study is one of the highest forms of worship. You’ll never hear that preached in any Christian church for we know that worship is something that’s done in church with your eyes closed. But in the study itself is a form of worship and we should be emphasizing studying God’s word and studying God’s word together.
Sid: Now I never heard that concept that study is worship.
John: Hm hm.
Sid: But that’s… I’d never heard that proclaimed before.
John: It’s a profound concept but it’s basically of the Jewish heritage that study itself. When you study and here’s the idea of how you get the idea that it’s worship. When one studies in the context of Jewish thinking one studies in the view of doing. Now in Christian concept we study so we can teach or preach. But in Jewish context you study so you can do and then you can preach or teach like Ezra did he set himself to study the words of God the Torah of God and to do it and to teach. Well the idea of study as worship is this, when one studies with a view toward doing it’s the ultimate act of submitting oneself to the authority of God’s word and doing what God’s word says which is the essence of worship. Because worship in both Greek and Hebrew literally means to prostrate oneself or to bow in the presence of God. So if we are studying God’s word with the intention of doing what God says, then we are bowing and submitting ourselves in His presence and we are worshipping Him.
Sid: So so let’s say a pastor will be studying to give a good message to inspire his congregation the motivation is honorable. But you’re saying the higher motivation is studying so that we can do it ourselves and in so doing it we’re a living epistle.
John: That’s right we actually become witnesses witnessing for us is a state of being not an action that we’re engaged in periodically once a month or something. Our very being becomes a witness and in affect fulfills what Jesus said “You’re the light of the world and let men see your good works and glorify the Father in heaven.” So the light that we radiate to the world is manifest through the good works not what we believe it’s what we do about what we believe that manifest those good works and causes the light of God’s word to shine. But you know once you get that element injected into the mix of what made up the community of life in the earliest church the congregational life and you go beyond that to the idea of the house of prayer obviously God has called us to prayer and the acts of worship, the acts of intimacy in the relationship to God in face to face relationship with Him. When you have all 3 of those things present the church grows explosively and I’ll give you…
Sid: But wait a second now the church today has meetings, the church today has Sunday School or bible studies has prayer, I’m not sure I see the difference.
John: Well we’re going way beyond that because again it’s in the context of this community type thing it’s not the star struck mentality where you come in and you watch a performance and you hear a few words for a few minutes and then you go away with…
Sid: Whoop we’re out of time…
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth