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WORSHIP BY SUBJECT - what is the relevance of the church?

Evangelizing Levi and Us
Luke 5:27-32
Rabbi Rev. Dr. Michael H. Koplitz

After that He went out and noticed a tax collector named Levi sitting in the tax booth, and He said to him, “Follow Me.” And he left everything behind, and got up and began to follow Him.

And Levi gave a big reception for Him in his house; and there was a great crowd of tax collectors and other people who were reclining at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes began grumbling at His disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with the tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

The passage in chapter 5 verses 27 to 32 in Luke’s gospel is a brief introduction to a tax collector named Levi, who is called by Jesus to follow him. He gave up his lucrative tax collecting job to join Jesus. He was not concerned that he would no longer have the luxuries afforded to him as a tax collector for Rome. He was not concerned about his own welfare. He realized that the man standing in front of him who asked him to join him was indeed God’s Messiah.

I happen to be an Arminian Wesleyan, so I follow the theological explanation of the Scripture by a man named Arminian who lived about 100 years before the man named John Wesley. Many of you will recognize John Wesley because he was the founder of the Methodist movement back in the early 1700s. John Wesley believed that the people in church were the righteous ones that Jesus spoke about in this passage. He believed that he, like Jesus, needed to go out and find the sinners in the world, who were facing a big problem, and help them become righteous.

Now I can’t say the church is really doing that today, even the Methodist churches, but one should understand that this is pretty important. John Wesley would visit bars with his brother, who was a prolific writer of songs, and they would put these songs to bar tunes. The most famous him from Charles Wesley, the brother of John Wesley, is titled “For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”. The tune is an old English bar tune people sang lyrics to in bars.

John did this with his brother because he wanted to bring Jesus Christ to people who may never have heard of Jesus. People who worked in the coal mines in England and other service areas were very upset with what was going on in England at the time and they had lost their hope. John Wesley restored hope in Jesus when he spoke to these people. He got them to see that there was an afterlife and that it was important to be right with God before death. He stressed one must accept Jesus Christ as God’s Messiah, Lord and Savior, so that they would be prepared for heaven.

The Church of England did not appreciate Wesley’s efforts. Many times, he got the lecture that we never leave the church. Rather, people seeking Jesus should come to the church. But how do you get people to think about their relationship with God through Christ if they’ve never entered a church? We have to go out and tell people about Jesus. That’s called evangelism and we need to become superb at it because, if not, the faith in Jesus Christ could continue to diminish on earth and disappear.

I am confident that every person listening to or reading this message can do this. When I started on my journey to ordained ministry, evangelism scared me. I was very concerned that evangelism was not near the top of my list. I had several discussions about it with my mentor and he realized that my fear of evangelism was that I really didn’t know Jesus and the Gospels that well yet. Over the 25 years that I’ve been studying Scripture in Jesus and the doctrine of the church, I am very confident to talk to people about salvation through God’s Messiah, Jesus Christ.

When I received my assignment to a church in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania, I successfully convinced several people to join me in going to the local ice cream store and performing Christian music for the crowds. I cannot tell you what all the results were because people may have gone to other churches in the when I was out in Dillsburg, but I felt as an Arminian Wesleyan that I was fulfilling that part of my calling. Every one of us needs to be evangelizing. That’s the way we're going to rebuild the faith.

At my first church assignment and student in seminary, I felt it was necessary to go out and visit people who couldn’t come to church for whatever reason. The senior pastor would only hold communion five times a year and I would note which of the regular attendees were not there that Sunday. I would then go out in the next week and bring them communion. When the senior pastor found out I was doing, he called me into his office and gave me a very interesting lecture that if people want communion they have to come to church, and it is wrong of us to bring church to them. I hundred percent disagree with that and I was very clear about that when he lectured me. I believe that we should take church out to the masses.

That’s what the founder of Methodism John Wesley said and did. Believe it or not he was persecuted by the Anglican church for doing this. I wish I could talk to some of the bishops in the Anglican church in those days to ask why going out and bringing Christ to people outside the church was so horrible to do. It would’ve been an interesting debate.

I came to know Jesus Christ because my lovely bride brought Christ into my life and introduced me to him. It was then the pastor of the church, a lovely man named Don, who shall we say place the cherry on top of the sunday, when I pondered being baptized in Christianity. The pastor of the church and my family evangelized me. I have never forgotten that the lovely many, the pastor of the church, evangelized me outside of the church. This experience influenced my ministry and inspired me to evangelize others.

Main purpose of my radio show on WYCO 106.1 FM in York Pennsylvania is that I want to reach people for Christ who may have never heard of him. That is in alignment with our station owner's vision for the radio station. I am very blessed to have a Sunday show and some words during the week hoping someone listening will say like I did; “I want to know more about Jesus Christ.” So, a big thank you to station owner and manager, for allowing me to have that opportunity.

I may never know all the people that came to know Jesus through the radio’s show, but that’s not what’s important. What’s important is getting the word of Christ out there. To let people know that there is hope in life and death by coming to know Jesus Christ and living the way he explains to us and shows us in the Gospels.

If you have not come to know Jesus Christ and would like to, you can always contact me through the radio station. The website is WYCOlive.org. Think about how much more enriched your life would be if you got to know Jesus. If you already know Jesus, I pray you seek all the learning you can. I did over 30 years ago, and I am loving it and always will. Thanks be to God for sending his son, the Messiah, to save us from ourselves.

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Luke 5:17-26

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Is it Interest - Continued
Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
Bava Metzia 63B‎

‎(This explains what Modern Talmud Tales is all about. The author presents a modern-day scenario. The ‎reader is challenged to solve the issue using a particular section of the Talmud. Many times, there is no right ‎or wrong decision. However, you should be able to support your decision based on the Talmud tractate. The ‎ancient way of life is often very different from today’s ways. The challenge is understanding how the people ‎in Judea solved their social problems.)‎

A borrower brings 100 bushels of wheat for a cash loan. He receives $500 for his ‎wheat because the market value is $5 per bushel. A couple months later, the price of ‎wheat rose to $6 per bushel. The lender sold the wheat. Later that same day, the ‎borrower returns with $500 and wants his wheat. The lender informs him that he ‎sold the wheat, consequently canceling the loan and receiving full payment. ‎

The lender made $100 on the loan. Is that money considered interest? The borrower ‎would have to pay $600 in the marketplace for the same amount of wheat. ‎

Bava Metzia 63B tackles this question. If a commodity rises in value, can a lender sell ‎it? A question about earning interest on a loan arises. ‎

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Worship by subject - Luke 4:31-37
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Cultural Items
Dr. Michael H. Koplitz
Bava Metzia 61B‎

‎(This explains what Modern Talmud Tales is all about. The author presents a modern-day scenario. The ‎reader is challenged to solve the issue using a particular section of the Talmud. Many times, there is no right ‎or wrong decision. However, you should be able to support your decision based on the Talmud tractate. The ‎ancient way of life is often very different from today’s ways. The challenge is understanding how the people ‎in Judea solved their social problems.)‎

This “tale” is actually sharing some cultural items that are in the tractate. The first ‎item is an exegetical rule when reading the Torah. “We must apply an exegetical rule ‎called, something that is learned from its context.” (Steinsaltz Talmud edition) ‎According to this rule, when an interpretation is in doubt, in which case a verse in ‎the Torah is referring, we interpret it as referring to other cases mentioned in the ‎same verse. ‎

Lev. 19:13 ‎ You shall not defraud your fellow. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of ‎a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.‎

Since the prohibition against robbery is in the same verse as the prohibition against ‎withholding a worker’s wage, and not in the context of the laws forbidding interest ‎and fraud, we must interpret is as emphasizing the severity of the crime of robbery ‎through withholding payment, rather than robbery through taking money unjustly. ‎

Lev. 19:11 ‎ You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.‎

Stealing comes under the general category of stealing someone else’s property. It ‎differs from robbery only because it is committed by stealth rather than by force. ‎The connection to interest collected on a loan (since that is what this chapter of ‎Bava Metzia is about), it follows logically from the laws forbidding interest and fraud ‎that it is forbidden to steal. It is forbidden to rob.‎

People must always remember that stealing is forbidden, regardless of the ‎motivation. ‎

The Torah explicitly forbade inaccurate weights in order to cover the case of ‎someone who immerses his weights in salt, corroding them, so that they weigh less ‎than they should. The metals used for weights in Talmud days would corrode when ‎exposed to salt. They would brush off the corroded material from the weight. The ‎weight then weighed less. Let’s say you took a one pound weight and kept removing ‎the corrosion. It could then weigh only 15 ounces instead of 16, etc. Since the weight ‎was used to measure out a pound of food or material, the seller was robbing the ‎buyer. It was a common practice in the ancient world to do this.‎

The measurement of land in Talmud days was done with a standard length of rope. ‎Rope stretches in the winter because of rain and humidity. It shrinks in the summer ‎because of the dry heat. Rabbis forbade dividing the land between heirs and ‎measuring it once in the summer and another time in the winter. Measurements had ‎to be done in the same season. ‎

The Torah connects the Exodus from Egypt in connection to the law forbidding ‎interest. Why? The sage Rava explained the Exodus was mentioned in connection ‎with those commandments that involve deceit. The Torah uses the Exodus as a ‎reminder to people that they cannot deceive God, even if they are tempted to ‎behave deceitfully and believe they will never be caught. Rava says that God could ‎tell the firstborn of Egypt from the rest of the people. In the same way, God can ‎detect and punish those who violate the laws of the Torah while pretending that they ‎are not doing so. ‎

The Torah mentions the Exodus in connection with the law forbidding the use of ‎weights in order to teach us that God will detect and exact punishment from ‎whoever immerses his weights in salt, deceiving his customers.‎

The Torah involves the Exodus about the commandment to not eat anything that ‎creeps (insects, lizards, and crustaceans). This is to define these animals as non-‎kosher and not allowed to be consumed. ‎

The difference between the phrase “Who brings you up from Egypt,” instead of ‎‎“out of Egypt,” alludes to the idea in the following Baraita from the School of Rabbi ‎Yishmael, “If I had only brought Israel up out of Egypt for the sake of this thing – ‎that they do not defile themselves with creeping things – it would have been ‎sufficient for me.” People consider the prohibition against eating creeping things to ‎be of exceptional importance. Thus, they used the expression here in a spiritual ‎sense. God elevated the Jews from Egypt spiritually by forbidding them to eat ‎creeping things. ‎

The Torah invokes the Exodus to remind us about an unscrupulous merchant who ‎sells non-kosher end trails as kosher. ‎