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There are a ton of questions out there about Easter and whether Christians should celebrate it. And here’s the thing. While there are a lot of internet myths and conspiracy theories about Easter’s pagan and historical origins (which we address in this episode) there are also some legitimate concerns we need to look at. And we don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So let's take a level-headed, biblical look at this holiday. And this episode is intended to be a helpful resource so we’re going to cover a lot of ground, from pagan myths to Constantine to whether it’s appropriate for Christians to celebrate Easter today.

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:19 Defining our terms: What is Easter?
03:22 Easter eggs, bunnies and Christians
07:03 The nature of worship
16:16 What’s the problem with manmade holidays?
19:28 Ishtar vs. Easter
22:02 Pagan Spring Fertility Festivals
29:56 Passover, Constantine, and Nicaea
33:52 How many days in the grave?
39:06 Did Jesus rise on the Sabbath?
41:19 Wrap it up, Professor

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If you’re a Torah-keeper Christian, I genuinely want to hear your thoughts on this. I’m going to present you with a set of Old Covenant commandments that I believe have clearly ended. To me this is undeniable evidence that the Law of Moses is no longer in effect. But I want to understand how you see it. How do you work out this issue? First, we’ll take a good look at the Scriptural data on this issue, and then we’ll talk about the only two possible ways that data can be harmonized and make sense. There’s the way mainstream biblical Christianity views it, and then there’s the way many of our “Torah-observant” friends view it.

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:50 Atonement in the Torah
10:56 New Testament Atonement
20:01 Making Sense of the Data

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Meet Brian Crawford, the Director of Digital Evangelism at Chosen People Ministries. He's been sharing the Gospel with unbelieving Jews for over 15 years and has a lot of wisdom and insight to offer on the topics of Jewish evangelism, Messianic Judaism, and Torahism (aka Hebrew Roots, Torah-observant Christianity).

Link Mentioned in this Episode
Chosen People Ministries
2 Messianic Jews (YouTube Channel)
Messianic Jewish Alliance of America
Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations
Jews for Jesus

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:45 Meet Brian Crawford
04:59 What does Chosen People Ministries do?
08:57 What is Messianic Judaism?
14:37 The theology of Messianic Judaism
17:00 The remnant of Israel
21:44 Are Believing Jews under the Law?
26:09 Are Gentiles obligated to keep the Torah?
28:52 Sidebar: What is “One Law” theology
31:08 Are Gentiles obligated to keep the Torah?
34:01 Are there Gentiles in Messianic Judaism?
36:11 The  Mixed Multitude at Sinai
41:16 Do Jews eveangelize?
43:07 Who was the New Covenant made with?
44:52 How do Jews view Messianic Judaism?
47:08 Who do Jews think Jesus was?
50:15 Keeping the Law without a temple
54:06 Why was the second temple destroyed?
01:10:23 Get in touch with Brian and Chosen People

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Let's take a 10,000-foot fly-over of the narrative of the Bible and look at the role that the Law plays in the overarching Story of God. If you’re a believer in God today, this is your story. The faith journey that we believers are living out today is the continuation of the same story we read about in Scripture. And knowing the overarching story of God’s people and their relationship to the law helps us get our bearings as we read our Bibles. And it helps us recognize and address unbiblical teachings when we come across them, whether they come from Torahism, progressive Christianity, or a local Bible teacher. As we dig into this larger story of God’s law, we’ll see more clearly how God has been pouring out His grace, mercy, and love on mankind since the beginning.

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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Chapters
00:00 Intro
03:05 The Biblical Story of the Law: Adam to Moses
07:36 Three Reasons the Law was given
10:22 What’s in the Law of Moses?
12:54 Disobedience & the Prophets
14:51 The Arrival of Jesus
17:40 The Law & the New Covenant
19:49 Things that have passed from the Law
21:57 About the New Covenant
22:46 The Torah and the Law for Christians
24:22 Two important questions
24:48 Why do the disciples keep the Law?
27:37 Are Christians without a law?
29:12 New Commandments
32:10 Who are God’s People?
34:29 Wrap it up, Professor.

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A few months ago, Prof. Solberg offered five reasons why we can’t follow the Law of Moses and the Gospel of Jesus at the same time. David Wilber later posted a response to that teaching. We invited him on this channel to have a friendly discussion on this issue, but he politely declined. So here is Prof. Solberg's rebuttal of David's claims. We first briefly correct the record regarding David’s inaccurate claims about Professor Solberg's position on the law, and then move on to the more important task of examining his David's claims against the New Testament.

Links mentioned in this episode
David Wilber's full video
Prof. Solberg's original video

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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Chapters
00:00 David Wilber’s response video
02:02 David’s mischaracterizations
09:47 The Torah remains, the Law does not
11:50 Which commands apply to Christians?
13:43 Whose commands are we talking about?
16:02 Permitted but not required
17:43 The danger of Hebrew Roots
18:32 5 reasons we can’t follow Moses and Jesus
21:44 Issue #1: Atoning for Sin
27:15 Issue #2: The Priesthood
30:53 Issue #3: The Tabernacle (Temple)
35:18 Issue #4: The Temple Veil (Curtain)
38:11 Issue #5: Circumcision
40:28 Wrap it up, Professor

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In this episode we discuss whether we are saved by faith alone, or faith plus works (also known as "works-righteousness.") To fully understand this issue, we first take some time to unpack three commonly-confused aspects of salvation: regeneration, justification, and sanctification.  There’s actually more confusion about these three concepts in the church today than you might realize. And when we get them mixed up, it can lead to mistaken ideas about what we need to do to be righteous and to be saved. We see some of this confusion in the theology of Torahism (Hebrew Roots). But even mainstream, biblical Christians can get confused.

Next, we apply that biblical understanding to a passage in Galatians 6 that our works-righteousness friends often cite as evidence that personal effort or works is a requirement of being saved. And we’re going to see that when we understand the Bible’s definition of these three components of our salvation, it becomes obvious that Galatians 6 doesn’t teach salvation by faith plus works.

Lastly, we share share six huge problems that would be created if our good works actually did contribute to our salvation.

Links Mentioned in Episode
Debate/Discussion on Faith Alone w/ Teacher Rob Solberg (Abide in the Word YouTUbe Channel)

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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Chapters
00:00 Intro
03:04 Regeneration (Born Again)
04:54 Justification
17:10 Sanctification
19:32 Losing our salvation
29:02 Galatians 6:6–10 Sowing & Reaping
44:53 Six big problems if our works save us

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Meet Dr. Eric Mason, pastor of Epiphany Fellowship in Philadelphia, PA, and author of many books. In this discussion, he shares his wisdom and insight on a range of topics from cults, to racial identity, to biblical literacy, to pastoring a church. Enjoy!

Dr. Mason's Church - Epiphany Fellowship
Dr. Mason's new book - Urban Apologetics: Cults and Cultural Ideologies: Biblical and Theological Challenges Facing Christians

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:45 Meet Dr. Eric Mason (Background and current work)
04:16 What is the new Urban Apologetics all about?
09:02 Biblical literacy
13:22 How does the Church defend against cults and ideologies?
18:08 Gateways into cults
22:34 God-given ethnicity and race
27:12 Cults recruit from the Church
29:51 Pathways out of the Church
32:53 What is “urban apologetics”?
39:22 Advice and resources for the average believer
43:10 Dealing with family and loved ones
47:58 Advice for pastors and leaders
57:22 How can our churches be proactive?
01:03:07 Hope in the modern culture
01:09:25 How to get in touch with Dr. Mason

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Our goal was to determine if, by the conclusion of the Council of Nicaea, Christian theology had been altered or corrupted due to anti-Jewish attitudes. And if so, how, and to what extent, was it altered. While anti-Jewish attitudes did exist, we saw that they didn’t corrupt or negatively alter Christian theology to any appreciable degree. In this final episode, we look at a few observations on additional topics that are relevant to our discussion but didn’t fit neatly into the flow of our study.  We look at terminology, seeking a biblical tone, freedom in Christ, and an epilogue on the Christian’s proper biblical view of Jews.

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We continue our examination of early Jewish-Christian relations by reviewing the theology and attitudes of Christianity at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. In this episode we'll look at the decisions and artifacts generated by the council and compare them to our five-point New Testament framework on how Christians are to regard the Jewish people and Jewish theology. We'll also examine the council's impact on our two theological markers: (1.) Sabbath versus The Lord's Day and (2.) Passover versus Easter. And lastly, we'll clear up some common misconceptions about Constantine and the Council of Nicaea.

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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We continue our examination of Jewish-Christian relations in the early Church by summarizing the early Christian writings that we've reviewed. In this podcast episode we'll compare those post-apostolic historical writings to our 5-point New Testament framework on how Christians are to regard the Jewish people and Jewish theology. We also examine these early writings to see how they stack up with regard to our two theological markers:
(1.) Sabbath versus The Lord's Day
(2.) Passover versus Easter.

Defending the Biblical Roots of Christianity
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Prof. Solberg's Blog
Support our Ministry (Thank you!)