Cody:  Let me continue my response to Messianic Bureau International’s list of  “errors” of Christianity.  I dealt with the first two “errors” last time and will finish the list here.  Again, this is a list of the ways in which MBI believes Christians have erred during the past 2,000 years.  For ease of reading, I’ll put the words of the Messianic Bureau International in ALL CAPS:

1.        CLAIMED TORAH (GOD’S LAW) WAS NOT VALID ANYMORE AS A STANDARD FOR CHRISTIANS.

     This is not an orthodox Christian argument.  Torah is as valid as ever to demonstrate to all men that they are law-breakers who deserve the wrath of God (Rom. 3:20).  It is as valid as ever to help the regenerate person to discern the law written on their hearts – that which pleases God – and to faithfully obey it.  It has never been a law that provided salvation (Gal. 3:21)

2.       DEPICTED MESSIAH YESHUA (JESUS) AS EFFEMINATE, NON-JEWISH, AND A BREAKER OF TORAH.

     Hey, don’t like a lot of Jesus paintings either, but bad painting isn’t exactly heresy.  Besides, this statement really seems to reveal a fundamental ignorance of art history and anthropology.  People have always tended to portray Jesus as one of their own.  By way of example, Try these on for size.  The doctrine of the incarnation and the call to be all things to all men for the sake of missions (1 Cor. 9:19-23) should challenge us to consider what it must mean for the Word to take on flesh in any and every culture.  Contextualization people! 

     And, effeminate?  Really? Are you sure you don’t just mean Italian?

3.       TURNED THE GLORY OF MESSIAH OVER TO POPES; MARY AS THE “QUEEN OF HEAVEN.”

Yeah, I agree, that was stupid.  But again, I didn’t do that.  I wonder if MBI is familiar with the Reformation.

4.      GAVE MORE IMPORTANCE TO PAUL’S WORDS THAN YESHUA’S WORDS.

     I find this to be a really troubling statement.  On the one hand, it is just ignorant.  There have been plenty of Christians throughout the ages who have proposed a “canon within a canon” in which the “actual words of Jesus” are emphasized over and above other words.  Martin Luther, for example, did this.  Moreover, every red-letter Bible is essentially doing this very thing.  I mean why are they red?  Any 3-year-old who looks at a red-letter Bible is going to assume that there is something special about the red words.  And what is it?  Why, they are the words of Christ!  But isn’t the whole Bible the word of God?

     The fact of the matter is that the whole canon of Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16).  John 3:16 is no more the word of God than Zephaniah 3:16.  The word of God is the word of God.  Suggesting otherwise is inching towards heresy.