The MINIM, the Orthodox and RC Churches, and later branches on the Decalogue

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:01]Just wanting to add this little point.

[00:00:04]Uh I appreciate what uh Mike has been sharing on his broadcast and I was playing catch up to get to this point. But he takes us down to the the part where I gave a very brief synopsis and there may be an overstatement on my part to say that there is evidence directly about the Nazarenes having a a dual um division that would just came out of my head as I was describing it simply because they did observe the Sabbath and they are known to have observed the Sabbath and they are the ones who are described as fleeing Jerusalem to go to Pella.

[00:00:49]That name Nazarene is attached to them. So, there are later descriptions of Nazarenes that may describe something entirely different. But believers in Christ in Jerusalem responded to his call to leave Jerusalem.

[00:01:06]And they did and they spared their own lives by obeying him. That's a the claim the link for the issue of Nazarene.

[00:01:15]But the part about the Minim is far more established and that is that they saw such a distinction between the two, between the Decalogue and the other Mitzvot, the other requirements that have been numbered up to 613 for for a total not described in Bible that way but it's been described that way later.

[00:01:38]They made such a strong appeal on this subject that it it disrupted the synagogue and they did not want to lean in to their distinction between the moral law that was universally binding and the other Mitzvot which would be apply applicable to all Jews. They didn't want to lean into that.

[00:02:03]So, instead of quoting the Shema, it's the the Lord our God is one. Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.

[00:02:14]They kept that part of the worship service, but instead of quoting the Decalogue as they had done, they ceased to quote the the Decalogue so as not to give any credibility to the claim of the Minim that there was some kind of a distinction. So, that's very very early on.

[00:02:39]Greetings to you guys joining in. I'm I'm just doing this very quick just so I can and get the word out as in response to Mike.

[00:02:48]And I presented this to him as something that perhaps he did not know.

[00:02:54]So, I would suggest that anyone look into the subject of the Minim.

[00:02:59]And the mental connection that I have to this is that the church continued to believe that the Decalogue was valid.

[00:03:10]That the Decalogue was important. In fact, the name Decalogue comes from Greek because they described it as a unique set and you can look through the early fathers and they talk about the Decalogue. And they talk about certain parts of it as being applicable to Christians and therefore the Roman Catholic tradition which carries that on and the Eastern Orthodox tradition that carries that on is built on that notion that the Ten Commandments are indeed moral.

[00:03:43]Now, the question is whether God either intentionally included a ceremonial aspect in the in the Decalogue, this moral code, just to show his authority or from for some other reason, or as some might think that he made a mistake, a categorical mistake, including something so very ceremonial, in their thinking, in this group of moral commands.

[00:04:11]And that's that is the question that people have to answer. But clearly, this is something that is rooted in the beginnings of the Christian movement, even while they weren't called Christian. The Jews did not call them Christian. They called Gentile and Jewish believers in the Messiah Minim.

[00:04:35]And they kicked them out of the synagogue, and they changed their services.

[00:04:42]And that is fundamentally part of our understanding that there is a distinction between the moral precepts and the other ones that had application for Israel, and that had ceremonial items that Hebrews tells us are changed.

[00:05:02]And the priesthood is changed.

[00:05:04]Sacrifices are no more. So clearly, there are some distinctions.

[00:05:09]And in the book of Acts, Acts 15, there are there is definitely a distinction between what is expected of Jews and Gentiles.

[00:05:21]So, there's some kind of a distinction because there are some things that that are fundamental and other things that are not.

[00:05:27]That's all I wanted to make. Um the issue of backfill is that each one of these groups that attribute moral quality to the Decalogue, just say it at at at large, but then have caveats and explanations.

[00:05:49]And the explanations differ.

[00:05:51]The earliest explanation is the Roman Catholic explanation. It predates the Lutheran and it predates the Calvinistic.

[00:06:00]And it says that the Decalogue is all binding but that the church had the authority to change the fourth commandment.

[00:06:10]And the Augsburg Confession calls attention to that and says that they they think that their authority must be very great that they could actually change a command of God. So, it's codified in the Augsburg Confession that they recognize that Roman Catholics Catholics taught that the whole of the law was still binding just that the church had the authority to change it.

[00:06:35]And they come up with a different rationalization, a different reasoning.

[00:06:40]It's not the original reasoning. If we go to the earliest reasoning and we we have to go back to Justin Martyr and we have to go to the Epistle of Barnabas, although it's not really the Barnabas of the New Testament.

[00:06:53]And we can go there and we can see that their reasoning in debating against the Sabbath is that the eighth day is superior to the seventh.

[00:07:04]And I don't know how you get eight days in a seven-day week. It isn't literal. It's some kind of symbolism and if you check it out, you can see that it has the echoes of Gnosticism which had the eight realms of the Ogdoad and that that was what they're actually using. And if you dig into Gnosticism, you find it's not totally apart from the Bible.

[00:07:33]Rather, it is superimposing upon Old Testament imagery its own Gnostic knowledge.

[00:07:42]And part of that is this eighth realm that makes that supposedly superior to the seven realms of the original creation which uh were are attributed with with being evil.

[00:07:55]And so therefore it's it's superior.

[00:07:58]And you see the reasoning of the Epistle of Barnabas twists Isaiah to make God say that he no longer in the book of Isaiah.

[00:08:11]The very book that talks about Gentiles keeping the Sabbath. The very book that talks about in the new earth observing the Sabbath and the new new moons.

[00:08:22]So Epistle of Barnabas imbibes this Gnostic reasoning that undermines the very book uses misuses the book rather than accepting that what God was addressing was a kind of service that they were rendering on their Sabbaths and and their celebrations that did not give their hearts. And that was his concern and has always been his concern.

[00:08:53]If we could get the whole world to keep a Sabbath but to never give their hearts to God it wouldn't be Sabbath keeping. Not in the sense of the scriptures.

[00:09:05]Anyway, um there we go.

[00:09:09]God bless you all and that's just a a quickie note and I hope that you guys are enjoying this and that Mike and I can have reasonable debate on these issues and that we can look at the evidence and both have the evidence.

[00:09:27]He tends to lean on certain academics that he respects and I respect uh the rigor of academic pursuit. Obviously, I have um spent many years at it. I have a degree in theology. I have a minor in biblical languages, Greek and Hebrew. I studied those things because I wanted to be able to study it for myself and to use the tools.

[00:09:53]But I recognized early on that there is a group think in academia that sometimes gets it wrong because group think tends to support itself.

[00:10:04]And uh therefore, I respect, but I verify.

[00:10:11]And that's where I am on the academic pursuit.

[00:10:15]Well, let me see if I got anything here that you guys are replying to me or if this is your own private conversation.

[00:10:25]Okay.

[00:10:28]Yeah, it looks like you guys are having your own debate.

[00:10:31]And I don't have anything more on the subject, and I hate to to break this nice little conversation up going in the in the column, but I'm not going to be here for long cuz I got to get ready for the Sabbath. I'm preaching tomorrow on the prayer for strength.

[00:10:47]The prayer for strength.

[00:10:49]And um maybe some of you can join me on the Warrensville SDA channel.

[00:10:54]It'll be in English and in Spanish. So, para los que hablan en español, sería un beneficio.

[00:11:01]All right. Y'all take care. God bless.

[00:11:04]Over and out.