Let Us Examine Ourselves

2 Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves, whether you stand in the faith: prove yourselves. Don’t you acknowledge that Y’shua the Mashiyach is in you? And if he is not, you are despised and against #Torah.¹⁵

¹⁵ The #Aramaic word here is maslya, a very competent synonym for being against either namusa or aurayta and therefore “lawless”. The root means anything from “contemptible/despised” to “rebel/reprobate” and therefore Rav Shaul is making one of his most shocking statements against later Christo-Pagan re-interpretation:

◾Belief in the Mashiyach brings an open heart towards Torah, not a rejection of Torah.

◾This one verse, indeed this one word maslya, effortlessly crushes the romanticism of lawless faith because to be a rebel is also to be despised by this exact same definition. The translation above of “despised and against Torah” is actually a double simultaneous exploitation of this singular word and root. 

◾In addition, this also speaks very powerfully of the “re-education” of Gentiles entering into the Kingdom of Heaven, and how Rav Shaul first begins to teach them about giving up their #paganism. Rav Shaul teaches from the foundation of Scripture, the #Tanakh (Torah-Neviim-Ketuvim), that reveals Y’shua as Mashiyach and the Kingdom of Heaven as the goal and purpose of life. Notice how Rav Shaul opens this chapter: “that, by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every word may be established” (Deuteronomy 17:6; 19:15; Matthew 18:16), then he explains that to embrace Mashiyach is to embrace Torah.

◾Torah is the Charter of the Kingdom of Heaven, not the Jewish Traditions about Oral Torah, but the literal Word of YHWH, the written Torah that became Y’shua, the Living Torah. Perhaps Paul was also attempting to inoculate the #Corinthians from Jewish teachers who had rejected Y’shua and were looking to do Paul some serious harm. But we must also dig deeper into the real seedy underground of Corinthian society. 

◾The city was so paganized that the Greek word korinthiazomai, which meant to “act like a Corinthian”, became a synonym for illicit sex. Corinth was the Las Vegas, Nevada, sin-city of its day. Just like #Ephesus boasted a massive temple to Diana, #Corinth dedicated itself to #Aphrodite, the #goddess of #eroticism, hence explaining its propensity for #prostitution and #fornication. Corinth boasted of having 1,000 women to serve as temple #prostitutes, haSatan had major #spiritual strongholds on Corinth.

◾When people weren’t worshipping sex, they were engaged in drunkenness or participating in the local athletic games that were second only to the Olympic Games in importance. Corinth also boasted a massive stadium that could hold more than 20,000 people. The citizens of Corinth lived for sensuality, paganism, wealth and pleasure.

◾#Pagan life seemed very good for these people, according to the standards they knew before the knowledge of YHWH and His Mashiyach was brought to them. And yet, in spite of the dire pagan culture and manifold temptations they faced each day, Rav Shaul is generally pleased with their spiritual progress. His rebuke that they are as lawless ones without Mashiyach probably hit home with more force than it would have in any other place he travelled, including #Rome. 

— AENT 2008-2016 5th Edition (Page 585) 

#AENT = Aramaic English New Testament, Historian, Linguistic, and Translator Andrew Gabriel #Roth.

#2Corinthians13_5 #Namusa #Aurayta.