Brachot Achi,

I am a truck driver and it is impossable for me to attend Church much at all, so I look to the internet for what fellowship I can find. I like reading Christian History and have began self learning Hebrew ( a slow process).
Not a lot of messianic sites on the myspace so I tried here as of late, Haven't found much here yet but am still looking. I ran into a friend who also believes in the Messianic way but her and her husband are isolated from it in their community, I am her one and only Friend here and I would like to see her find new friends here.
I am hopeing that you can help me out with all that and I have sent you a friend request.

Todah Achi
Avimelech

I'm finding that there are different flavors of MJ.

Some MJ's are really Christians pretending to be (or exploring) Jewish cultrue. I've been there personally. However, these folks (still) believe in the Roman Catholic "Trinity" and Jesus to be God in the flesh (ie. the Mithraic Pauline view as adopted by Roman Catholicism and Protestantism). This belief however is incompatible with the First Commandment and the Shema ("Hear, O Israel: Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one.")

Other MJ's have abandoned the Roman Catholic / Mithraic / Protestant (ie. they've abandoned the Pauline view) and understand Yahushua (Jesus) to be a mashiach (messiah, anointed one) of Yahweh God who preached a more accurate (reformed) understanding of Judism. This is where I am today.

Many MJ's have also abandonded a great deal of Judiac tradition with the understanding that God never required sacrifice in the first place and that much of Torah may not be wholly inspired. (Jer. 8:8) This is also where I am today in my understandings of the Word (the Character) of Yahweh God.

As far as MJ's using the same Bible, I still use the Tanakh (OT) and some of the writings of the first century (NT) but I've removed the Pauline epistles and some other NT books as absolutely spurious. (Note that the Protestant Reformers did the same thing with the Roman Catholic Bible canon.)

Faith in the 22nd century is changing. There is a lot more information that is freely available than there was even a decade ago. This free-flow of information is changing the face of Judaism as well as Christianity in much the same way the printing press changed the face of Christianity 500 years ago. Faith is not as cut-and-dried as it was when our parents were living and growing in their (much more limited) knowledge of God.

People are exploring the factual history of their faith and making changes for the better. I think that's a good thing in bringing us closer to a much more accurate understanding of a truly loving God.

-Beau