Roots of Faith

Content
The weekly classes in my new series will focus on the Annual cycle of readings followed faithfully by traditional Jews around the world. Each week, according to this cycle of readings, a section of the Torah and the prophets will be highlighted.

Options – Make the experience personal!
You will have the option of listening in live on Sunday night, or if your schedule does not allow you to listen in live, you will have an entire week to download our podcast for study at your own leasure. Some may wish to wait until the Sabbath to listen.

I have also determined through feedback from many of my faithful listeners (and from other sources) that the length of the most effective teachings are under an hour and razor sharp! My goal will be to organize the teaching in such a way to effectively cover the main points of the weekly parsha (Torah section) in a class that is much closer to 30 minutes. This way, most people can download the class and listen to it during an average commute to work or while you run errands, go to the gym, etc.

My main goal as a teacher is to encourage you to study the Torah and to learn to apply its principles to your life in a modern world – thus inspiring you to live a more biblically authentic lifestyle. I am trying to make this is convenient for you as possible. I want you to learn!

Over the course of the year we will cover the entire Torah! Your life will be transformed as you drink of the refreshing waters of the God-inspired teaching of Moses. 

Why focus on the Torah?
As David said in Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes and I will look for wonderful things from your Torah“. We will do just that! We will open our eyes and take a fresh look at the Torah.

The final prophetic word in the Hebrew Bible, recorded in Malachi says, “Remember the torah of my servant Moses” (Malachi 4:4 – English Bible). And yet, humanity has drifted far from “the teaching”. The nearly 6.5 billion inhabitants of our planet need to hear the words of this eternal teaching delivered once and for all to the ancient people of Israel. After all, the intent of this teaching was that it would go forth to all nations (Isaiah 2 and Micah 4), and ultimately, in what the Bible calls the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34), the Torah will be written upon the heart.

Despite what people believe Jesus the Jew taught, it is recorded that he claimed that did not come to abolish the Torah or the prophets but to fulfill – adding further that until heaven and earth passed – not a single letter…not even a stroke of a letter would pass from the torah until all was fulfilled (Matthew 5:17-20)!

I can think of no greater subject matter to devote my time to learning and to helping others learn than the Torah of Moses.

Who Would Benefit from these classes?
I believe that these classes will be helpful for Jews and Christians as my style is unique. I am a bit tough to label as I tend to resist such categories, opting for the simple designation of “biblical“. I will at times draw upon Jewish wisdom, much of which is organized around these very weekly readings from the Torah and Prophets, but I am not Jewish. I will often draw upon texts from the Christian Scriptures, much of which clearly points people to a Torah way of living, though I no longer associate myself with the label of Christian. “Christianity” in its modern sense has long ago abandoned the religion of Jesus for a religion about him.

I hope that you will listen in and that you will encourage others to listen in as well. In addition to the weekly class I will post a blog for download. The intent will be to publish a handsome document for download and printing each week with my own notes on the weekly parsha. You can put them in a 3-ring binder and at the end of the year you will have a complete reference work for your further studies. I hope to expand this as time goes on into a full course, complete with on-line tests and a certificate of completion for those who stick with us.

I am more and more planning to spend my energy developing, with the help of my faithful friend Brian Jones, a virtual community on the web where you can experience fellowship with others who are seeking to live according to the principles of the Hebrew Bible. This “Synagogue Without Walls” is catching on. People from literally around the world are joining up. I encourage you to check it out.

And finally, there is no greater reward than to lead people to a better understanding of God and His ways. As Hillel said, “Be of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and bringing them closer to the Torah”.

We are all disciples and this saying has inspired me in the current direction of Roots of Faith and our ongoing effort to bring people closer to the Torah. I hope that you can join us.

The new series will be called A Parsha Study with Roots of Faith. I believe that you will be greatly blessed by this series.

Shalom, Ross