Why should we love the Torah? BTE 502-03-5

One of my first KI classes Was Spiritual Disciplines One and it made a lasting impression on me. I remember Dr. Dan Stolebarger talking about the early followers of Jesus who turned the world upside down, oh that we would once more.

The story I remember so well was that after the Rabbi handed out copies of the Torah to his five year old students he would put a dollop of honey on it. He would have the children taste the honey; Psalm 119:103, "How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" This would of course make a very lasting impression upon his young students.
So why should we love the Torah? The Torah has given us the history of the early Jewish race and good moral principles to live by.

First there's the creation story with the fall of man and the hope of redemption through the seed of the woman.

We learned of a society that had become so evil that God wiped it out with the exception of eight people, Noah, a righteous man, and his family. Through the story of the Tower of Babble we learned that when God says go and populate the world he means it. "And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." Genesis 11:6-7

Thousands of years later America now embraces many practices prohibited in the Bible. Our World Trade Towers came down and instead of taking this as a warning to repent, we defied God as did Israel; "The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars." Isaiah 9:10. The book "The Harbinger: The ancient mystery that holds the secret of America's future" by Jonathan Cahn is a fascinating and timely read.

The history of the patriarchs is captivating. In Jacob’s and Joseph's time, the Jews went into Egypt as a family and came out as a nation. Moses certainly had his hands full and shows us that even this exemplary man could blow it at the last minute. Moses had to wait until his meeting with Jesus on the the Mount of Transfiguration to gain entry into the promised land.
Jesus said that Moses wrote of him thereby eliminating any question about the validity of the Torah. Wonderful as the Torah is, we Christians are not under the law. “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)

So many wonderful stories in the Torah, so many lessons to learn and so few words allowed in this exercise.