The first biggest and most challenging question that Bible-readers have had to deal with throughout the generation was been: What is for now and what was for then? The second is: Why didn't Christ give in Part A of the New Testament what Paul gave in Part B? Or: Why did't Christ leave behind ready-made what Paul went on to expound and systematise later? It's this lack of detail that has resulted in such denominational variety over the centuries and particularly in the last five.

When I first became a believier you could say that I was a 'primitivist' in search of the original New Testament community. A number of churches and groups have arisen claiming to be just that but inevitably, since the more modern ones were 2,000 years after the event, they inaccurately interpreted the past using the lenses of their own era. The Campellites, for instance, who started the 'Churches of Christ' denomination in the early 19th century in America, naturally interpreted the Greco-Roman-Palestinian first century AD through the lenses of 19th century America. And there's a world of difference between the two.

Culture, like a river, ever evolves, meandering through new terrain. Some of the oldest rivers in the world, especially the big ones like the Rhine, the Mississippi and the Mekong, don't look anything like the way they were two millennia ago. As you travel down the River Rhine starting in Switzerland and make your way to the Netherlands through Germany, you are at once struck by the fact that on either side of it are hundreds of oxbow lakes. These are original portions of the river that in time broke off from the main river caused by erosion and silting-up. You only have to look at maps covering the last 200 years to see that the river has changed course many, many times. Indeed, rivers form the boundaries between many countries such as the River Danube and as the river changes shape, so the boundaries between countries seem very strange indeed, as bits are found on one side of the river and bits on the other side where previously the border had gone down the middle of the watercourse. I've never understood why they don't let the river determine the border as it gradually changes shape but then I suppose all kinds of michief could follow to gain the advantage of one nation over the other by damming it it up and changing its course deliberately to grab more territory

Though rivers all start in the same place, and are joined by other rivers with which they merge, and though they change shape, and though they may emty into the sea at different places over the ages (the Rhine is a good example of that), they do at least empty out into the sea. It is the beginning and the ending that are the main things, the alpha and omega of the river, if you like. What happens in between seems open to an incredible diversity. This has led me to wonder if, indeed, contrary to what I once hoped, that it will ever be possible to fully 'restore' the first century messianic community or church. I'm not even sure if that is even desirable any more - why recreate problems that have long since been solved? We have plenty of new ones to grapple with. I have watched individual denominations themselves change in the brief span of my own life which I have found profoundly unsettling - mostly because the majority of the changes have been for the worst, but also - and this is my pain point - because we are creatures who by and large dislike change and prefer constancy. Yes, we're back to that theme again.

Some things just won't be contained and though that upsets the Prussian side of my personality that craves order, it delights the more artistic French side that adores the unknowns of creativity. And this is the problem: the eternal struggle between the static and the creative is constantly changing because we are creatures of both. So the question really is: what should be static (Yah'shua/Jesus said, 'I am the same yesterday, today, and forever' - Heb.13:8, NKJV) and what should be fluid (He also said, 'The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Ruach/Spirit' - John 3:8, NKJV)? The one is predictable and the other is not. And what exactly does the writer of Hebrews mean when he says that Christ is the "same"? The same what?

These may seem to be silly and irrelevant questions to some - more a question of philosophical speculation - but I don't think so. In fact, I think they are very important for the Remnant again because once you start throwing people together from different denominations and cultures there are always going to be clashes. That's why in some countries like the USA you find Korean, Chinese, Czech, Romanian and other nationality-oriented churches. It seems many just cannot mix. Is that good? What's so important in each of these individual cultures that they feel the need to erect a wall of cultural and linguistic partition to preserve them? And if that's wrong, who gets to decide what is best of the various national and denominational groups? How is the Remnant supposed to get on and be echad (one)?

We're back, once again, to the idea of there being Twelve Tribal Divisions, and why Yahweh wanted them and not one single homogenous soup? Over time groups evolve and change and each 'older' generation is shocked the way each 'younger' one is going - sometimes rightly but often times wrongly. How is all of this to be steered to 'sameness' that is not bland and a 'unity' that is little more than the lowest common denominator? How do you get oneness and diversity without contradicting the 'sameness' that the writer of Hebrews spoke about and fragmenting?

A flippant and not uncommon answer might me, 'Just leave it up to the 'Spirit'' but then we're back to the subjectivity of the charismatics once again and we've all seen the mess that that produces. Someone might say, 'Well, just add Torah into that mix and let things sort themselves out'. Doesn't work. I know several charismatic Messianics who do all the Pentecostals 'tongues thing' and they are just as chaotic as their non-Torah charismatic friends. Some of them are downright weird. So how to you resolve the apparent conflict between the necessity of order and the need for creative expression....in the messianic community of church, that is?

I have spent 35 years struggling hard over this one. Some things are crystal clear to me, others aren't. Morality must be consistent and therefore rigid. Some things are 100 per cent right and some things are 100 per cent wrong. Adultery, for instance, is 100 per cent wrong under all circumstances. That means we need to know what adultery is which brings us back...again...to the need for careful, painstaking biblical exegesis. And to take that one particular example further, it isn't at all what our culture says 'adultery' is, and wasn't even back when I was an Anglican in the 1950's and 60's when that Church was still pretty conservative. In fact, you'd be greatly surprised to find what the Scriptures actually say about this matter.

Part of the blindness to a proper understanding of what adultery is comes from a wrong philosophy of gender - men and women are not only distinct (gender is not fluid but rigidly binary and every geneticist knows that) but they are different. Yahweh has assigned different rôles to them. In the space of my lifespan, not only have those rôles been challenged and overturned by the secular, non-Christian culture, but so has the idea of gender itself, and you all know the madness and confusion we live in now. Indeed, words like 'morality' and 'adultery' have no meaning any more in the current cultural and political climate. The problem is that this 'climate' has been embraced by most of the Body of Christ too. Confusion reigns everywhere.

I can sit with you and explain with total clarity and accuracy what gender is and what adultery is because the Bible is totally unambiguous about these two things, as is science as far as the former is concerned. Christ - and by extension, therefore, Yahweh too - has been the 'same' in regard to these things from the very beginning. He has not changed and will never change. It is people who constantly chop and change. One of the things we do here - and I think I can say this without being conceited that we do it pretty well - is straighten such matters out. The Scriptures do that for us when we take them seriously. And yet if I told you that from a biblical perspective an unmarried woman can never commit adultery, no matter how hard she tries, would you believe me? She can be a fornicator and a vow-breaker (which are very serious sins to be sure) but an unmarried woman can never commit adultery, whereas a single, unmarried man can be.

If this surprises you, then there is a lot you still don't understand either about the Bible or the heart of Elohim (God). And this is something you have got to understand if you want to come up to the Remnant - and I am not just talking about physical adultery; but first you have to be rid of - overcome - your doctrinal and denominational prejudices.

And as we saw yesterday, David Livingstone still had a hangup in this area. He assumed Chief Sechele was an adulterer when he was not, demanded that he mangle his conscience by believing in a lie, and caused unspeakable suffering to his family. The Elohim (God) of Livingstone and Western Christianity 'changed' by the whim and fiat of man and caused unspeakable damage. If you believe an unmarried woman can commit adultery, then you are in trouble because then you're going to misjudge and misunderstand a whole host of other things too. You are believing in a doctrine of demons and need your mind and heart to be purifiedn (1 Tim.4:1-2a).

By the same token, if you're a liberal and think the sexual mores of contemporary society are acceptable, then you're in even greater trouble. And if I might be permitted to lobb another grenade into your pot, were you aware that the Torah does not condemn what we might call 'lesbianism' but comes out strongly against the male equivalent? Do you know why? Was Yahweh careless? Well, you won't understand why, or understand what Paul meant when he said men and women should not exchange natural relationships for the unnatural (Rom.1:26), if you don't know how to properly define adultery. And now it's the same with defining a 'women' - people can't even do something as simple as that now becauseb their minds have become hopelessly confused by lies.

You see, you don't have your doctrine as neatly taped up as you thought, and when they happens, and you don't want to face the truth, you turn, instead, to your 'gut instincts' or your 'feelings' for inspiration which is a very dangerous thing to do! Why, billions of Christians don't even know what the gender of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) is and that's rather important, don't you think? It will certainly change the way you view women, taking the liberating news of the Nativity Story, which taught a misogenistic world to respect motherhood and childhood like never before.

I admit that today I have deliberately shaken up the barrel because you need to see the dregs at the bottom of your own so that you can filter them out. I had planned a totally different message for you which I had had to set aside for this message. I am a bit short of time today so I am going to have to curtail this message now. My hope is that today I have stimulated your curiosity and galvanised some of you to want to know more. And to begin your quest, go and read the article, The Truth About Adultery. You will have to have a showdown with some of your prejudices if you want to take this further by reading the whole book of which that is a chapter. Remember, though, that the discomfort of the truth is a thousand times better than the satanic soothings of a lie.

More tomorrow. Have a really blessed day in Yah'shua (Jesus)! Amen.