Have you heard? I have issued a $10,000 reward to any anti-Torah “Christian” who can go through my body of work regarding The Torah—and more specifically the things they primarily object to from The Torah, such as the Leviticus 11 food laws, The Sabbath Day, the appointed Feast Days, not embracing pagan religious activities according to Deuteronomy 12:29-31, and a few other matters that many consider “voided in the new covenant”—and prove that the pronomian or Torah-positive position that I have presented is actually factually wrong.
Now, I initiated this challenge through a video, which is available on several platforms—YouTube, Facebook, and Spotify. I do recommend taking the time to watch it. The message is a bit preachy in parts, I know some people—especially old school Baptists and Pentecostals—enjoy that style of presentation, while others tend to like a softer teaching side. And those who prefer the softer teaching side would likely prefer reading my articles anyway, which are also a lot deeper and more theologically rich than preaching videos I have produced. But I am putting this article together both to bring better clarity to those who seem to misunderstand the challenge I have presented and to bring that challenge to those who may not enjoy as much the preachy style video I initiated it with.
Now, because there are always those who, when such a challenge is issued, want to believe it’s as easy as saying, “Read Galatians, give me the money,” I feel that there needs to be come clarity given to what I expect to happen before I will even consider giving someone $10,000.
Let me begin by saying that the money is real. I’ve been asked if the money is real or if this is just a joke, and you have my absolute word that this is a real offer and there absolutely will be a cash reward if someone can do this. Of course, I don’t believe it’s even possible, as I will explain, and I certainly would not place $10,000 on the line if I thought there was even a fraction of a chance that someone can prove me wrong about The Torah. It was also suggested that I give the money to a third party to hold, and look, I’m not doing that. I have the money in the bank, in a savings account earning interest, and I imagine I will earn a lot of interest on it.
Now, let me explain more specifically what I am expecting from someone who believes that they are deserving of my cash reward. After all, as I am putting $10,000 on the line I am not exactly going to make it easy. Again, I do believe that what I am presenting here is an impossible task. But if you sincerely believe the anti-Torah position is correct, then put my money where your mouth is and “prove me wrong”.
Here’s A Bible Verse, Where’s My Money?
As mentioned a moment ago, there are those who think that winning this challenge is as easy as telling me to read Galatians or any number of other passages of Scripture that they believe is the “smoking gun” that proves me wrong and proves the antinomian belief correct. The primary problem with this approach is that every single passage of Scripture they use has an equally or even more compelling understanding—as is presented by the pronomian or Torah-positive theological perspective of those same passages.
Take the Book of Galatians, which seems to be the go-to source for the antinomian folks. I don’t know how many times I have been asked if I’ve ever read Galatians or even told in a demanding way that I have to read Galatians. One hot-shot preacher who thought he was all that once told me to make Galatians my favorite book in The Bible—I found that quite comical.
But there are two major problems with this. The first is that there are several very well-written full commentaries and books focused solely on Galatians built around the pronomian theological perspective. Some good titles include Galatians: A Torah-Based Commentary in First Century Hebraic Context by Avi ben Mordechai, Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians by Tim Hegg, and Galatians in Context by Eric Tokajer. In addition to this there are numerous video series from established pronomian Bible teachers like Scott Hillman of the A.C.T.S. Bible Training Center in Tennessee and Gary Simons of Triumph In Truth Ministries. While all of these are people I may agree with on some points and disagree with on others, they have all presented a solid case to view Galatians in a Torah-positive manner. As such, “Read Galatians,” is not a sufficient argument to proving me wrong about The Torah. All it proves is that there are Bible scholars who have viewed Galatians from an antinomian perspective and other scholars who have viewed it from a pronomian perspective. This in itself does not prove one view right and the other wrong.
The second major problem with the use of Galatians as “the ultimate proof text” for the antinomian position is that the author of Galatians, the apostle Paul, was a Torah-keeping Jewish teacher. Some would go as far as calling him a rabbi. When we look at other portions of Paul’s writings, we find a man who clearly promoted living by The Torah. Take, for example, the Book of Romans, which is one of the most Torah-positive books in the entire Bible. In Romans the apostle is repeatedly endorsing and promoting a life of Torah-obedience. Then we have 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 where Paul is admonishing Believers to keep the feast—referring specifically to the Torah-appointed Feast of Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread, which is also the one thing Yeshua told us to keep in His memory—and 2 Corinthians 6:17 where he quotes the prophet Isaiah telling us to touch no unclean thing, a clear reference to the Leviticus 11 food laws.
In addition to Galatians, I want to highlight two other passages that people use to make the claim that we no longer have to live by The Torah. There are, of course, many I could use, but these came up recently and so I will use these as my examples. The first is Romans 7:1-6 where the phrase “dead to the law” is taken as a proof of some kind that “Christians” do not have to live by The Torah. But this is just another perfect example of a passage that has a pronomian way of understanding it—as author and Bible teacher David Wilber presents in a message he put together for 119 Ministries titled Dead To The Law? (Romans 7:1-6). If this is a passage you are hung up on, I suggest reading David’s message or looking up the video version of it and seriously weighing his approach to the passage against what you have been told it means.
Another passage that is often used is Colossians 2:14-17. Of course, those who do this fail to jump back to verse 8 of the passage and find out that Paul was addressing philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men and the basic principles of the world rather than Messiah. Anyone who thinks that this is descriptive of God’s Law, The Torah, really is quite biblically illiterate. But in addition to this and to my own work on Colossians 2, I recommend looking at Bible teacher Daniel Botkin’s article What was Nailed to the Cross in Colossians 2:14? This is probably one of the finest presentations I have read from the pronomian position on this passage.
These and so many other examples I could provide show that there are pronomian or Torah-positive arguments for all of the passages used as “proof-texts” by the antinomian people. As such, it is insufficient to simply throw a passage of Scripture up as the “proof” needed to receive the $10,000 reward I am offering to prove me wrong about The Torah being a continued mandate in the new covenant.
Some people seem to think that their antinomian opinion article or video teaching or some other such thing proves their position, and they act like these people from the Hebrew Roots cults that think the earth is flat. You ever encounter these people? They always have some video or something that “proves” the earth is flat, when in reality all it “proves” is that someone with a wild idea was capable of making a video. The only way to definitively “prove” to me that the earth is flat—or that it’s not flat for that matter—would be to fly me into space where I could observe for myself whether or not the earth is flat. Until then, I am forced to embrace the opinion that makes the most logical sense. In this case, based on all of the evidence I have reviewed, I maintain that the earth is a globe of sorts, just like the moon and all of the planets we can observe using a telescope.
And that is what I am looking for. I want you to fly me into the metaphorical outer space of theology and show me something I can’t refute. Show me actual proof that would be literally impossible to formulate a pronomian counter-argument to. Because there are so many good and well-presented pronomian counter-arguments to all of the antinomian claims, from their view on the Book of Galatians to everything else they use to support their beliefs regarding The Bible. That is the one thing that the antinomians have never accomplished, and something that I think would be impossible to accomplish, and I will explain why, so that you can have proper clarity on the nature of my challenge.
Pronomian And Antinomian Understandings Of Scripture
There are three important points that need to be considered when approaching Scripture.
1. There are certain passages of Scripture that are frequented by the antinomians, such as those we just looked at, that have an equal or possibly stronger pronomian understanding.
2. There are certain passages of Scripture that can only be properly understood from a pronomian perspective—such as The Torah itself, Psalm 119, and really pretty much anything in the Tanakh (what “Christians” often and wrongly call the “Old Testament”). In other words, if you were to travel back to the time before Yeshua and use the existing Bible up to that time, the Books that make up the Tanakh, and use it to teach an antinomian message, it obviously would not work and you’d probably be stoned as a false prophet because of Deuteronomy 13.
3. There is a whopping total of zero passages of Scripture that can only be understood from an antinomian perspective, or that it is impossible for them to be explained through a pronomian view.
These three points alone are sufficient enough to say that it is impossible to prove the pronomian position wrong. At best, at this point, all the antinomian can really hope to do is convince people that their view is the correct one, but they cannot prove outright that their view is superior because it has these strikes against it. Also, recall how I said that I want the “smoking gun”, the antinomian argument to which it would be impossible to make a pronomian counter-argument? Well, that will probably never happen, but there are, based on my second and third points here, pronomian arguments for which it would be impossible to counter-argue through antinomianism. For example, one could formulate a pronomian message based on Psalm 119, but there is no logical way to present this same Psalm in a way that endorses antinomianism. The entire Psalm is a mantra of endorsing a Torah-based life. You might contend that the Psalm is “old covenant, no applicable to you”, but you cannot build an antinomian theology on the Psalm itself.
In addition to these points, there is a major theme in Scripture that really should be considered the deathblow to antinomian or anti-Torah theologies—those beliefs that state that The Torah, either in whole or in part, has been voided through the biblical new covenant and as such does not apply to “Christians”.
In The Bible we have the main protagonist, Yeshua our Messiah, and the main antagonist, Satan—who is also known as Lucifer, the devil, the ancient serpent, and numerous other things. Yeshua is called The Righteous One in Isaiah 53:11 and Acts 3:14, 7:52, and 22:14. Satan is referred to as or associated with, depending on how one views it, the lawless one in 2 Thessalonians 2:7-12. So, we need to consider what righteousness and lawlessness (or sin) means according to The Bible—not according to “Christian” religion or a particular language, even a language that was used to write The Bible, but according to The Bible itself. Incidentally, we have passages in the biblical text itself that define these words—we could say: according to God’s dictionary.
Righteousness is defined biblically in Deuteronomy 6:25 where it says: “It will be righteousness to us, if we take care to do all this commandment before Adonai our God, just as He has commanded us.” And “Christians” have actually agreed with this as a definition of sin in numerous scholarly resources of theirs. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon states that righteousness means: “observing divine laws, keeping the commands of God.” Nelson’s New Illustrated Bible Dictionary says that righteousness is: "Holy and upright living, in accordance with God’s standard." The Layman’s Bible Encyclopedia says it is: "Being free from wrong or sin." Of course, with that last one we need to know what sin is, so let’s continue.
Lawlessness (or sin) is defined in 1 John 3:4 where it says: “Everyone who keeps sinning is violating Torah — indeed, sin is violation of Torah.” Many other translations use lawlessness where this, the CJB translation, says “violation of Torah”. Lawlessness, or sin, is the breaking, violating, transgressing of The Torah. And once again we have “Christian” academic resources that agree with this. According to a resource called Discovery Bible lawlessness means: "the utter disregard for God's law." Thayer’s Greek Lexicon says it is “the condition of one without law—either ignorant of it or violating it.” Vine’s Bible Dictionary includes “unrighteousness” in its definition of the Greek word anomia, which of course would be the exact opposite of “righteousness”, and as we saw righteousness is following, keeping, obeying, living by The Torah.
Satan’s first appearance in The Bible is in Genesis 3. We know that Satan is the serpent because Revelation 12:9 says he is. And what did he do? He led people against the commandment of God. What does Satan always do? He leads people against the commandment of God. That’s his agenda, his mission.
Yeshua appears in The Gospels, though many contend that He appeared throughout various points in Israel’s history prior to that. But for our purposes here we will stick with the clear revelation of Yeshua in The Gospels. And what do we see Him teaching? All throughout The Gospel record He is seen promoting a Torah-based life. He kept The Sabbath and the Feasts, He never said, “Now, after the resurrection all this stuff will be done away with.” He kept the food laws—the only thing He ever did with a pig was to cast devils into them. He lived by The Torah, and nothing in The Bible ever says He did it so we wouldn’t have to. Quite the contrary. 1 John 2:4-6 says that anyone who claims to be in Him—anyone who says they are born again, says they are saved—but does not keep the commandments is a liar, and that we must walk just as He walked. He walked a Torah-observant lifestyle.
Literally, your position on The Torah determines who you are following. Saved people, those who truly are in Yeshua, are those who keep The Torah. People who claim to be saved people, those who say they are born again, but do not keep The Torah are followers of Satan, the ancient serpent, the lawless one, who says you don’t really have to obey the commandment of God, it’s optional at best, but you won’t “die and go to hell” over it, and all of their other theology that mirrors what Satan said in Genesis 3:1-5. In Deuteronomy 28 is a list of blessings for the Torah-observant and a list of curses for those opposed to The Torah. Among the curses, in verse 28, it says God will strike those opposed to The Torah with a spiritual blindness, madness, and confusion. In 2 Thessalonians 2:11, part of following the lawless one Satan, it says that God will put those who follow the lawless one and oppose The Torah under a delusional force and they will be incapable of seeing the truth. In Genesis 3 when the commandment of God was broken access to the Tree of Life was lost, in Revelation 22 those who kept the commandments, who lived by The Torah, will regain access to the Tree of Life. But, “prove me wrong” if you think you can. Provide for me an argument for antinomianism and against pronomianism, or “Torahism” as one guy likes to say, that cannot be refuted with a pronomian or Torah-positive counter-argument. It’s that simple. If you can find an argument proving we have no obligation to follow The Torah—keep The Sabbath, adhere to the food laws, celebrate the Feasts, and so on—that cannot be rebutted with a pronomian counter-argument, if you can show definitively that the pronomian arguments for all of the passages relevant to this matter are wrong, then you win. But if you cannot, perhaps you should concede that a life of obedience makes more sense than popular anti-Torah “Christianity”.
And let me make a quick remark about that word anomia I mentioned a moment ago. This is the Greek word that would be the opposite of the word nomos. This word anomia is used in The Gospels and Apostolic Writings of Scripture and it is the word commonly translated as lawlessness in modern English translations—though some translations will use other words like iniquity, but it all means the same thing. Anomia is ultimately the basis for the theological term antinomian, the word used to describe those who hold the belief that The Torah is no longer binding, either in whole or in part.
The word in contrast to this is the Greek nomos, which is used throughout the Apostolic Writings as a reference to The Torah. Also, this is the word used in the Greek Septuagint, a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek that was done centuries before the life of Yeshua and was clearly the choice text of Paul and likely all of the apostles, for the Hebrew word Torah.
Now, most “Christians” of the anti-Torah position are what I would call partial antinomian, meaning that they do not reject the entire Torah outright. They do this through a fictitious dividing of The Torah into categories of moral, civil, and ceremonial commandments. I have addressed the fallacy of this in another article, so if you take my challenge you will inevitably have to read that one. For the most part, “Christians” will say that whatever they deem as part of the “moral laws” retains its mandate in the new covenant while the “ceremonial laws” have been done away with. As for the “civil laws” it depends on who you talk to, some will say those are still binding and others that they are not.
The problem is that The Bible supports none of this. Also, there are passages like Leviticus chapters 19 and 20 that pretty much destroy this concept. These two chapters specifically are often referred to as the holiness code or the code of holiness because the segment opens in Leviticus 19:2 with the statement, “be holy, just as I [God] am holy,” and then closes with the same in Leviticus 20:26. Between these two passages we find commandments that “Christians” would regard as “moral laws” and commandments that they would deem “ceremonial laws”—such as The Sabbaths (19:3), not wearing wool and linen together (19:19), not engaging in the practice of tattooing the body (19:28), and making a distinction between the clean and unclean and not eating what is deemed unclean (20:25).
Then take, for example, Leviticus 19:19-20. It goes from telling us not to wear the mixture of wool and linen together (while not always translated as such, the Hebrew word is shaatnez and most observant Jews today understand this as specific to the mixture of wool and linen, also clarified in Deuteronomy 22:11 where it is commonly translated as referring specifically to wool and linen) to addressing a matter of sexual immorality that “Christians” would consider part of their so-called “moral laws”. There are many such examples of this all through the Books of The Torah, the five Books of Moses that contain within them The Torah itself, where we go from a commandment that would be labeled “ceremonial law” to a commandment that would be labeled “moral law” and never is there such a distinction made.
So then, clearly from a solely biblical perspective, there is no such thing as a separation of The Torah into these so-called “moral, civil, ceremonial” categories. “Christians” will often tell me that you can find them, but the problem here is that they are taking a post-biblical concept and working backwards to force this idea into The Bible where it was never there to begin with. And anytime you take a post-biblical idea and work backwards to try forcing it into The Bible, you have already crossed into theological error. We start with what The Bible says, not the other way around. And The Bible does not support this idea of “moral, civil, ceremonial” divisions of The Torah or any other antinomian concepts.
There are established rules for properly understanding a written text, like The Bible. Two of those rules are that the text itself, in this case Scripture, must be used to understand what it’s saying. Another rule is that context dictates what the text is saying. Take, for example, a mystery novel. At some point in the novel the mystery is usually revealed, though some authors leave a cliffhanger if they intend to continue the story over several books. Once the mystery is revealed, you can no longer go back to earlier parts of the story and say: “I think this is what is going to happen.” You know it’s not what is going to happen.
But all too often this is how “Christians” approach The Bible. They ignore context and plain statements from within the text of The Bible that undeniably show Scripture to promote The Torah as a mandate of our faith and go back to specific passages that despite having pronomian explanations insist that those passages support an antinomian position.
Who Wrote The Bible?
It is of critical importance in this discussion to consider the people who wrote The Bible. And the clear fact of the matter is that every single Bible writer with the possible exception of two were undeniably Torah-keeping Hebrew people, or Israelites. Most of them following the reign of Solomon were Jews, as the terms “Jew” and “Jewish” refer specifically to the nation of Judah that evolved out of the kingdom split following the reign of Solomon. Subsequently, the religion of “Judaism” evolved out of this as well, over time, as first Pharisaism developed and then later, after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 A.D., Orthodox Rabbinic Judaism developed out of Pharisaism.
The two Bible writers in question would be Job and Luke. However, Job is said to be a contemporary of Abraham, so it would not be a stretch at all to call him a Hebrew even if his life and writing predates the formal establishment of the Israelite people. Clearly, he was a follower of the Hebrew faith that existed from the foundation of the world, as could also be said of Noah. More obviously, neither Job or Noah could be called “Christians”. Regarding Luke, there are solid arguments made that, despite the traditional “Christian” view, he was in fact a Jewish man. If he was not, clearly he would have been a convert to the Messianic form of first century “Judaism” that was held by the rest of the followers of Yeshua—much like the man named Nicolas in Acts 6:5 where many English translations list him as a gentile convert to Judaism. Regardless of this uncertainty regarding Luke, however, he was sort of a “right hand man” to Paul, and as such was clearly also writing from a Torah-positive Jewish perspective.
So, this leaves us with the undeniable fact that the entire Bible was written by Torah-keeping Israelite people, many of whom were also ethnically Jewish and all of whom could be labeled as Hebrews. They were not “Christians”, nor would any of them agree with antinomian “Christianity”. Again, that would be the result of taking a post-biblical concept, the religion of “Christianity”, that developed several hundred years after The Bible was written and relabeling the Jewish sect known as “The Way” and “The Nazarenes” as “Christians”. While it does appear that the label “Christian” was used toward these otherwise Torah-keeping Jewish followers of Yeshua, primarily by Romans and what at least some scholars suggest was a derogatory label, the anti-Torah religion itself that is called “Christianity” would not exist until centuries later.
On top of these points about who wrote The Bible—Torah-keeping Hebrew people, many of whom were Jews—our Messiah, Yeshua, was a Torah-keeping Jewish Rabbi who always taught His followers to live by The Torah. He was not a lawless “Christian” pastor, or a “Christian” at all, telling people that The Torah is now done away with. As David Wilber contends in his excellent article The Law of Moses vs. The Law of Christ? (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21), the phrase “law of Christ” as used in Scripture does not refer to a new set of regulations distinct from The Torah but simply means The Torah as Yeshua taught it—a view that he points out is supported by a number of leading Bible scholars that he cites in the article.
And let me say something about the apostle Paul as well, seeing as Paul is the writer most often used to support the anti-Torah “Christian” belief system. I have even seen many of them treat Paul with more reverence than Yeshua. But Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, this happened in Acts 21:33. They began to question him, thinking he was someone else, and he explained in verse 39 that he is a Jewish man from Tarsus. As the proceedings went on, other Jewish leaders charged that Paul was going around teaching that people no longer have to follow The Torah—you know, exactly the thing most “Christians” believe Paul’s message taught.
When we get to Acts 24:14 we find Paul defending himself against these false charges by saying: “But this I confess to you, that according to the Way (which they call a sect), I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything written in the Torah and the Prophets.” Then when we turn to the next chapter, Acts 25:8 quotes Paul as saying: “I have committed no offense against the Torah of the Jewish people, or against the Temple, or against Caesar.” Finally, when we arrive at Acts 28:23 we find that Paul was using The Torah to teach from in showing that Yeshua was the true Messiah. So, this man Paul was not who “Christians” think he was, he was not the bringer of a new anti-Torah religion, he was a Jew who lived by The Torah and taught others to live by The Torah—just like everyone else who had a hand in writing The Bible and just like Yeshua our Messiah.
As I stated previously, there are certain rules that govern a proper understanding of any written text. Another one of those rules says that you have to read the text based on the author’s intent. So, as The Bible was written exclusively by Torah-keeping Hebrew people and Yeshua was and is the Hebrew Messiah who came as a Torah-keeping Jewish Rabbi, then it goes completely against the intent of any Bible writer to view their writings as supportive of an antinomian position.
Regarding The Biblical Canon
Let me touch real briefly, as it has come up as a challenge to the pronomian or Torah-positive position, a matter regarding the biblical canon. The claim is that The Bible we have today, the accepted canon, is the product of “church bishops” or something of that nature. While there may be some element of truth to the finalized and agreed upon canon of Scripture being made official by what was then already established as the Roman Catholic religion and perhaps early Orthodox Christian religion, the reality is that these writings were already established as Scripture within the lifetime of the apostles themselves.
It is well-established that the works making up the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, what “Christians” wrongly call the “Old Testament”—a term born out of the heresy of Marcionism—were accepted as canon even before the life of Yeshua. Then we have passages like 1 Timothy 5:18 where Paul refers to a statement made by Yeshua as Scripture and 2 Peter 3:16 where Peter refers to the writings of Paul as Scripture. So, it is very clear that what we have in the accepted canon was already accepted as Scripture prior to what was “officially canonized” centuries later.
On top of that, the issue of the canon is not problematic at all to the pronomian or Torah-positive position. Regardless of whether or not anyone questions if we have “all of the Books that should be in the canon”, the fact is that all of the Books in the accepted canon were written by Torah-keeping Israelite people and are not saying what “Christians” often think they are saying. Let’s assume for a moment that the accepted canon was set by anti-Torah church bishops or some other such thing. At the end of the day, God is ultimately in control of His own Scriptures and this would not be the first time He used ungodly people to carry out His will. We see many examples of ungodly men in The Bible who were used by God to carry out His purpose among His people. So, for anyone who might think this a valid argument against a Torah-positive position, it would seem the joke is on them, because anyone who believes any human person is in any way controlling over Scripture is a person who believes that God does not reign supreme over His own Word.
Additionally, as a general rule, the proper way to understand The Bible is that there is The Torah—the instructions from our God, our Creator, on how to correctly live in this world He placed us in—and after that are stories of people who obeyed The Torah and were blessed, stories of people who did not obey The Torah and had problems as a result, and the words of prophets, apostles, and our Messiah reminding us to live by The Torah. That’s The Bible in a nutshell. If you approach Scripture that way, also applying the points I have shared above, you will see that it is the antinomian or anti-Torah position that is impossible to support with The Bible used in context and that it is impossible to “prove wrong” the pronomian or Torah-positive position.
Just The Facts
Let me now get to the heart of the challenge I have presented. I have stated “Prove Me Wrong!” To be specific, I am asking that any anti-Torah person go through my body of work that focuses heavily on showing the continued new covenant mandate to keep the food laws, remember The Sabbath to keep it holy, celebrate the appointed Feasts, and a few other things, and point by point prove that my arguments are wrong—provide an argument that cannot be counter-argued, not just the same old antinomian beliefs for which there are a plethora of pronomian rebuttals. It is for that reason I have to ask that anyone believing they have the argument that will refute me first go through my work, because there is a likely probability I have already presented an argument that refutes whatever they think is their “smoking gun”.
Now, I do have a few teachings within my body of work that would be irrelevant to the discussion. For example, I wrote a couple of articles addressing the significance unicorns and mermaids hold in the witchcraft religions, and those would not be relevant to this challenge. I also put out a statement some time ago seeking to address the ongoing debate about how to properly pronounce the Tetragrammaton name of YHWH. This too is not pertinent to a challenge related to The Torah being a part of new covenant faith.
That said, the challenge is focused primarily on my works regarding the food laws, Sabbath, Feast Days, and the matters of Catholic holidays like Christmas and Easter. It technically involves other matters I have touched on as well, such as tattoos or the wearing of wool and linen together, but those issues are relatively minor and a successful argument that cannot be refuted pertaining to “the big four” would likely also cover those other points as well. So, let’s go through these real quickly, and seek to highlight what I am really getting at here.
The Food Laws: As noted earlier, every passage used by the antinomians to claim that the food laws no longer apply or are no longer a mandate of our faith—Matthew 15, Mark 7, Acts 10, Romans 14, Colossians 2, 1 Timothy 4, and any others—all have solid pronomian explanations. First and foremost, all of these passages are contextually about obeying the commandments of God instead of following the traditions of men, so how can they possibly support a belief that a commandment of God—the food laws—no longer needs to be followed? The first act of sin in the entire Bible involved eating something God said not to eat. Have you ever thought about that? Isaiah 66:17 seems to indicate a harsh end for those who are found eating unclean things when Messiah returns. The Bible indicates that the food laws will be followed in the millennium. Paul admonishes us to “touch no unclean thing” if we want to be received by God (2 Corinthians 6:17), where he was quoting the prophet Isaiah. Unclean beasts and unclean birds are still being called unclean in Revelation 18:2. Everyone who wrote The Bible and Yeshua governed their diet by these food laws. So, go through my work on the food laws and “prove me wrong”, convince me using The Bible that we are no longer expected to follow the Leviticus 11 food laws today despite all of these points and what I have written about all of the “Christian proof text passages” within my body of work.
The Sabbath Day: According to The Bible, The Sabbath Day is the seventh day of a biblical week. This coincides with sunset Friday to sunset Saturday on modern secular calendars. According to The Bible, every single Bible writer would have kept it this way. There are 85 Sabbath Days documented in Acts alone as kept by the early followers of Yeshua, there are zero “Sunday church services” in Acts or anywhere else in The Bible, those didn’t exist at that time in history. Also, The Gospels tell us very clearly that Yeshua kept The Sabbath. The Sabbath will be kept in the millennium (Isaiah 66:23), and the Sabbath is referred to as an eternal sign of being in covenant with God (Exodus 31:13, Ezekiel 20:20). Then in Hebrews 4:9 it says that there remains a Sabbath for God’s people. So, go through my teachings on The Sabbath Day and, using The Bible, prove that The Sabbath is no longer a mandate of our faith.
The Feast Days: The Torah lists certain appointed Feasts that are to be kept, these are listed in Exodus 23, Leviticus 23, Numbers 28 and 29, and Deuteronomy 16. These also were kept by everyone who wrote The Bible and by Yeshua. We see references to them all throughout The Gospels, as well as Acts and other parts of the Apostolic Writings. Paul expressed a great desire to make it back to Jerusalem in time for Shavuot in Acts 20:16. Paul told us in 1 Corinthians 5:7-8 to “keep the feast”—referring specifically to Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. Zechariah 14:16-19 clearly tells us that Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) will be kept in the millennium and those who may refuse to keep it will receive a literal punishment from God of not receiving rain for their crops, and it says all nations will keep it, not just “Israel” or “the Jews”. Ezekiel 45:21 says that Passover will be kept in the millennium, and the surrounding context indicates that all of the appointed Feasts will be kept as well. On top of this, we could make the case that Purim and Hanukkah are also appointed feasts, as they were kept by Yeshua (John 5:1, 10:22-23) and we are instructed in The Torah, Deuteronomy 18:15-19, to shema (hear, listen to, follow, obey, do what He did) Yeshua, the prophet like Moses. So, once again, go through my body of work, the parts regarding the Feast Days, where I speak about their continued mandate on our faith and their prophetic significance to the life of our Messiah, Yeshua, and prove to me that they are not an obligation of our faith. Not an opinion, hard evidence that cannot be refuted.
Catholic Holidays: OK, I get it, this one is a very touchy subject for a lot of people, especially very sincere “Christians”. But the fact remains that there is an open debate about whether or not the Catholic holidays of Christmas and Easter (most don’t question Halloween, but we can include it in the discussion) are “pagan holidays” or in some way rooted in preexisting pagan religions. Here’s the thing: These holidays do not come from The Bible, they are the product of the Roman Catholic religion, which itself mirrors actual pagan religions with the way it treats “the saints” and the veneration of its “popes” as the so-called “vicar of Christ”. The word “Christmas” comes from the phrase, I think it may be Latin seeing as it comes from Catholicism, “Criste Masse”, which means “Christ’s Mass”. In other words, at the very least this is a Roman Catholic mass, something that has been historically opposed by non-Catholic “Christians”. The word “Easter” literally comes from a pagan goddess named Eostre (also sometimes called Ostara). That’s a historical fact, and regardless of whether or not we conclude this is sufficient to deem “Easter” itself, the holiday, as celebrated by “Christians” today a “pagan holiday”, it does mean that it’s an undeniable fact that they are celebrating the resurrection of Yeshua, the single greatest event in the history of the world, in the name of this pagan goddess. I wonder what Yeshua thinks about that? Something worth pondering. So, for this one I will say, prove to me that these holidays are biblical, which everyone will admit they are not, as they are not in The Bible at all except for a weird translation of what should be “Passover” in one passage in Acts in the King James Bible (which is even changed, or corrected, to Passover in the New King James Version), and prove to me that these holidays are definitively not “pagan”. I know people, even Messianic people, who are insisting and persisting that these holidays are “not pagan” and I have tried to point out to them that this cannot be proven definitively anymore than it can be proven that they are. However, they are not in The Bible and there is still an ongoing debate, one that will likely never be resolved, as to whether or not they are pagan—with very strong and compelling evidence that the indeed are pagan. When we have something that is not in The Bible, there is even a remote chance that it’s directly against The Bible, and we have no actual reason to partake in it, doesn’t it just make more sense to not do it? After all, we have way more celebrations given to us, by God, in The Bible. Why would anyone feel a “need” to hold onto something that there is even a remote chance will be the reason God rejects you from His Eternal Kingdom?
There are, again, some other points I touch on that may be relatively minor, like the matter of tattoos or wearing wool and linen together. But I have found that these are really non-issues once these “big four” are discussed. After all, a person who concludes that we should keep the food laws, Feasts, and Sabbath and that we should abandon Roman Catholic holidays tends to not want to engage in the practice of tattooing their body. And the issue of wool and linen is almost a non-issue because it’s rare to even find clothing with that blend in it today, and a person committed to the food laws, Sabbath, and Feasts is likely a person who will check clothing labels when shopping as well. Additionally, if it could be proven to the point a pronomian counter-argument cannot be provided that we really do not have to follow The Torah based on “the big four”, then it would pretty much be assumed at that point that things like tattoos and wearing a combination of wool and linen also no longer apply to us.
So that is my challenge, with $10,000 on the line. Actually take the time to go through my work and prove that I am wrong. Don’t just regurgitate the same old antinomian opinions about certain passages of The Bible, or antinomian opinions in general. That is clearly insufficient. There are pronomian explanations that counter all of it. You have to provide actual proof, hard evidence, something to which it would be impossible to give a Torah-positive counter-argument to, that undeniably proves the pronomian explanations of these passages and commandments that I and others have given is factually wrong. Not wrong according to the opinion of the antinomian understanding of these passages, but actually factually wrong through an argument that has no rebuttal.
You will have to prove that the people who wrote The Bible, the Torah-keeping Hebrew authors of Scripture, ever believed that there would be a time when people of biblical faith would not be required to live by The Torah, that this was the contextual intent of their writings. You would have to prove, despite there being a pronomian explanation to all of the antinomian “proof texts”, and despite there being passages like Psalm 119 that can only be understood as contextually pronomian, and despite there not being a single passage in the entirety of The Bible that can only be understood through an antinomian perspective, that the pronomian understanding I and others have presented is not true. You would have to prove, despite there being a lawless one, Satan, who from Genesis 3 forward is presented as the driving force behind “Did God really say…” and The Righteous One, Yeshua, who constantly and consistently upheld a Torah-based lifestyle, that the pronomian view is wrong. You would have to prove, despite the opening pages of The Bible telling us access to the Tree of Life was cut off because of the commandment of God being broken and the last chapter of the entire Bible telling us it will be those who kept the commandments of God who will regain access to the Tree of Life, that the pronomian perspective is wrong.
I could go on and on, but I think, I hope, you get the point. I know there are crafty antinomians out there who deny being antinomians. They say things like, “I don’t have a problem with people keeping The Torah, the only problem is when they say it’s a mandate.” Or, like the popular hyper-grace pastor Joseph Prince said in his book Destined To Reign, “I am for the law, for the purpose for which God gave the law (and you can quote me on this). You see, God did not give the law for us to keep.” He goes on to say that, according to his view, the purpose of the law is to bring man to the end of himself and see that he needs a Savior. This is a perfect example of an antinomian using crafty language to deny being an antinomian, because he said that in the midst of a larger discourse where he was disputing those who call him an antinomian.
People ask me how I will “determine a winner”, and it’s simple, prove to me that I am wrong, convince me, if you can do that, I will give you the cash award. If you can provide an argument that I cannot refute or cannot find an existing pronomian rebuttal to, then I will gladly concede. If you prefer, you can get a neutral, non-bias, third party judge to evaluate your arguments that you feel “prove me wrong”. Because such a neutral judge will be capable of reviewing the terms I have laid out, which are perfectly fair terms, and seeing the difference between an antinomian opinion about Scripture and an actual factual statement that proves something.
If you live in the continental United States, or even Canada for that matter, someplace I can reasonably drive to within a couple of days at most, I will even come to meet with you and give you the money while eating a swine-covered pizza—ham, bacon, sausage, pepperoni, all the swine fleshes—and we’ll do it on The Sabbath and then afterward we’ll go out and get tattoos. Yes, I’ll get a whole tattoo on my arm with something like “I was wrong about The Torah” on it. If you can prove to me that I should follow a theological position that mirrors what Satan, the ancient serpent, said in Genesis 3:1-5 instead of the theological position of Yeshua, then that’s what I will do. And if you are outside of the United States we’ll work out some kind of video session and I’ll record it for the start of a “new and improved antinomian version of Truth Ignited Ministry”.
But I really am not worried, because I know and so do all the antinomians that what I have presented is an impossible task. Deep down, they know I am right. They may believe I am wrong about The Torah, but they know I am right that it is impossible to prove their view is right and my view is wrong. They know this because they know the points I have made in this challenge show the impossibility of it. And that’s my whole point, that’s why I issued the challenge in the first place—you didn’t really think I’d be dumb enough to put $10,000 of my own money up if there were even a remote chance I’d lose it, did you?
But if you can prove it to me, please, do. I would love to know if I am wrong. It sure would make my life a lot easier not having to go against the whole religion of anti-Torah “Christianity”. On top of that, I just want to know that I know that I am following the true truth of The Bible. That’s all I care about, and that’s worth way more to me than $10,000. If I am really “fallen from grace” and “voiding the cross” and all the other things antinomians say, I want to know. And it should be worth more than $10,000 to you too. After all, if you set out to do the work to try an “prove me wrong” but find out I am right, wouldn’t that truth be worth more than $10,000 to you as well?
I know that what I have presented truly does seem an impossible task. Obviously, I am not going to accept an opinion or “interpretation” of a passage of Scripture when I know there exists views of the same passage supporting a Torah-positive belief. Clearly, I need something the equivalent of proving the earth is either flat or not flat by going into space and being able to observe it myself. I need an argument that is impossible to counter-argue, and I honestly can’t comprehend anyone actually being capable of making such an argument—especially this one guy whose name I see pop up a lot in Messianic and Hebrew Roots circles, I’ve looked at some of his teachings and they are the most ridiculously easy to counter-argue of any antinomian I’ve ever heard. What’s crazy is that’s the type of person who sincerely believes his arguments “prove” the anti-Torah position when the only thing they actually prove is that someone is capable of twisting Scripture to justify an anti-Christ theology. Because that’s what an anti-Torah theology is, an anti-Christ theology.
But if you believe you can prepare a convincing argument that my position on these topics is wrong, one that would be impossible to counter-argue, I will gladly consider it. What I will not do is engage with people who just want to share antinomian opinion pieces that prove nothing. What I will not do is engage in exhausting lengthy discussions with people who are just wasting my time. You know, if you want to take up my time with private consultations, schedule it with me and be prepared to pay me at the hourly rate you would pay any professional for a private consultation—which on average is about $100 or more an hour. That’s not “charging for truth” or “charging for ministry” or “charging for Bible teaching” or whatever. You can obtain all of what I have taught for free on my website. I am not charging for teaching the truth, I am charging for my time that you want me to give you in a private session to tell you what you can get for free on my website. So, if that’s what you want, I’ll gladly schedule a time for you to pay me for my time.
But the challenge is set, and it’s out there for anyone who truly believes they can properly do it. However, I think what’s really going to happen is most people are going to see the impossibility of it all. For those, my hope is that it is the impossibility of it, and not my $10,000 award, that compels you to read through my work. And so I will leave it at that. Visit TruthIgnited.com and see for yourself if the pronomian position makes more sense than what you have been told in your churches.
Blessings and Shalom
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