Affirming Kinzer

The other day, I drew attention to the beliefs of one of our Messianic leaders, Mark Kinzer. In particular, the belief that we ought to welcome Yeshua-denying Jews in our midst.

Meanwhile, you mean, lazy, stupid fine blog readers assumed I was taking a dump on one of our scholars.

  • Derek Leman implied I was a kindergartener who can’t write about Yeshua’s divinity myself.
  • Gene Shlomovich said I was trying to cast doubt on Kinzer’s devotion to Yeshua.
  • Michael Schiffman said I was bordering on Lashon Hara and going on a witch hunt.

Since you all read me totally wrong, and in the worst possible way, and assuming the worst of me, let me make it plain as dirt:

Mark Kinzer is a disciple of Yeshua who upholds 2 principles that define us in the Messianic movement:

  • The deity of Yeshua
  • The legitimacy of the Torah

Or in layman’s terms, Yeshua is God, and God’s commandments are in effect, and these two things are the core of Messianic Judaism.

I affirm both of those.

Praise God for faithful disciples like Mark Kinzer.

Clear?

Kinzer holds a number of beliefs -- Bilateral Ecclesiology and the Documentary Hypothesis, for example -- that I categorically reject. (I’m not alone.)

But he’s a disciple of the Lord, and I don’t lose sight of that.

22 comments:

  1. since when did the "deity of Yeshua" become a central tenet of Messianic Judaism? I thought it was his Messiaship.

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  2. Or in layman’s terms, Yeshua is God.

    Is that what he affirms? I know that some in BE are extremely uncomfortable with that language. Ask Gene. Ask FFOZ. Ask Derek. Affirming a "divine" Messiah, or Yeshua's "deity" is not quite the same thing as saying, "Yeshua is G-d" to some folks. In some cases it is merely weasling out of a corner, while in other cases it is a conviction of hermeneutics. Regardless, shining a light on the issue is sorely needed.

    Shabbat Shalom,
    B"H

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  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  4. OK, Judah, I'll take your explanation to mean that you didn't really mean to say things the way they came across for many of us. No problem.

    Good Shabbos.

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  5. Gene, I meant to say exactly what I said: Kinzer welcomes Yeshua-rejecting Jews.

    I also pointed out an inconsistency: welcome Yeshua-rejecting Jews, but frown on One Law and Two House folks that are Yeshua-faithful. (Including Jews like Dan, or half-Jews like me.)

    You interpreted this as casting doubt on Kinzer's devotion to Yeshua. I never called that into question, and no one's offered evidence towards that.

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  6. @Rick,

    You're right. It's hair splitting, ultimately, saying "I accept the deity of Yeshua", but then going on to say Yeshua is not God.

    Dear Everyone: Deity = God. If you accept the deity of Yeshua, as Kinzer does, you are saying Yeshua is God.

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  7. @Diggery,

    Ask Kinzer, those are his words, not mine.

    "Affirmation of the deity of Yeshua and affirmation of the covenantal obligation of Torah observance for Jews are the two central principles of our communal existence." -Mark Kinzer

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  8. @James,

    You have a spamming problem. What is this, the 3rd time you've spammed your link?

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  9. "Meanwhile, you mean, lazy, stupid fine blog readers assumed I was taking a dump on one of our scholars."

    I haven't been following this blog long -- However, I have noticed several things. First off, the snaps at the blog readers that comment. Whether you draw a line through it or not, we get the point. You enjoy name calling as much as those you accuse of it (and sometimes we even get a nice smiley face as if that makes it all better).

    Secondly, I have read statements like these in several of the posts:

    "I was taking a dump on one of our scholars."

    "But let's see, maybe Gene will poop on this."

    "As you can see, the more animated .gif images one has on his or her website, the more likely they are to be batpoop insane...

    "I don't know whether you read the Talmud -- I know many Messianics poo-poo it"

    "This sounds like absolutely bat-poop crazy stuff."

    "Bilateral Ecclesiologists announce discovery of Messianic who gives a turd"

    "The worldwide Bilateral Ecclesiology community met up over wine coolers today to celebrate their unprecedented discovery of a Messianic who gives a turd about Bilateral Ecclesiology."

    ...and the list goes on.

    It sounds like you have a fascination with a particular bodily function. In my opinion it makes the writings sound juvenile. I would either cut them out completely or man up and use the word the everyone puts in the place of the other vulgarities anyway by understanding what word you are already implying.

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  10. "It sounds like you have a fascination with a particular bodily function."

    LOL, fecalphile? fecal+phile = one that shows a strange fascination with feces.

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  11. "I haven't been following this blog long -- However, I have noticed several things. First off, the snaps at the blog readers that comment. Whether you draw a line through it or not, we get the point. You enjoy name calling as much as those you accuse of it (and sometimes we even get a nice smiley face as if that makes it all better)."

    LOL! Coming from someone who's moniker is zayin....

    Do you have any idea what zayin means in Israel?.....

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  12. "Do you have any idea what zayin means in Israel?"

    Dan, I looked it up in a dictionary, and my oh my, there was a photo of you there:)

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  13. Yes Dan -- but slang aside, we both know that isn't the real meaning.

    Except for a short period of time in the early years, hebrew was rarely used as a spoken language. That is why you hear orthodox Rabbi's staunchly opposed to "modern Hebrew". They say it was never meant for common tongue (and thus leading to perversion).

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  14. My there is a lot of name-calling going on here. Is this constructive?

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  15. fecalphile?

    Nah. We programmers are always having to clean up other people's messes.

    The funniest thing in my mind is how critics actually post. Reading a blog is a choice, but can be done without making it public. Posting adds to the public popularity of a blog. I laugh out loud when I read posters who are critical of others for being critical or "name calling" (or lashon hara). Don't they read what they write? 

    It's as if everyone had a Nielsen box on their TV and those that scream the loudest about violence on TV driving up the ratings by watching violent shows so they can tell others how violent TV has become.

    I don't read blogs that I don't enjoy. I have learned to never post to public blogs of detractors - even in defense. 

    Thanks Judah, for keeping us well-informed informed and entertained! Now if we could just get you off of Silverlight...

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  16. well-informed informed

    Oops. Blame it on iOS.

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  17. Rick, not a fan of Silverlight, eh? :-)

    Zayin, follow the link. That was a reference to an MIT paper published on how to write for a general audience. But if you don't like it here, you're free to leave.

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  18. @zayin, to clarify, the MIT philosophy paper guideline, which I linked to in the post, said this:

    "Pretend that your reader is lazy, stupid, and mean.

    He's lazy in that he doesn't want to figure out what your convoluted sentences are supposed to mean, and he doesn't want to figure out what your argument is, if it's not already obvious.

    He's stupid, so you have to explain everything you say to him in simple, bite-sized pieces.

    And he's mean, so he's not going to read your paper charitably."


    That you missed this validates what that MIT guideline suggested. In fact, that Gene and Derek and Michael misinterpreted my last post validates it as well.

    Amusing.

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  19. not a fan of Silverlight

    @Judah, nah, just kidding. I can't keep up with all the various languages. I am an old Visual Studio coder that also spent 9 years in Flash Actionscript. I recently had to learn Objective-C and Real Studio. Too many languages running around my brain right now.

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  20. "Dan, I looked it up in a dictionary, and my oh my, there was a photo of you there:)"

    You should have comtinued to the letter T and you would have found your picture under Tuches....LOL!

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  21. Ah. You'll have to tell me what you think of Objective C sometime. I am considering learning it in order to port Chavah to the iPhone and iPad.

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  22. @Judah, Chavah would be cool on iOS. Load up the xml and let it rip!

    If you know C#, Objective-C is a snap. The NS classes for the Mac or UI classes for iOS may take some getting used to (Apple documentation is rich, but labrynth).

    If you decide to get into it use XCode 4 (Apple's IDE), which should be released by Apple soon. It is much better than the earlier implementations.

    Of course, you will need a Mac, but XCode is free.

    (posted from Win7)

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