Faith of Messiah Ministries

10/05/2026

Join the Gospel Cycle and download your free reading plan: https://faithofmessiah.com/gospel-cycle

I called Jesus my King. I taught other people about him. But I realized I was spending more time looking for him in other parts of Scripture than studying the story of his own life.

If my identity was centered on Jesus, why wasn’t my study?

In this video, I share how reading the Torah on an annual cycle changed my approach to Scripture—and why I wanted to give the Gospels that same sustained attention. Reading each Gospel as a whole story helped me see connections I’d missed and confront questions about mercy, influence, and what it means to follow Jesus.

That’s the heart of the Gospel Cycle: a year-long reading journey, one weekly portion at a time. Read, ask questions, reflect, and gather with others to talk about what you’re discovering. I’ll also share a short weekly Substack article exploring one insight from the reading.

Whether you call yourself Christian or Messianic, whether you say Jesus or Yeshua, you’re invited.

Download the plan, put the first reading on your calendar, and invite one person to join you.

08/27/2026

They're in a boat. Storm hits. Jesus is asleep.

He wakes up, rebukes the wind and the sea, and everything goes still.

The disciples don't say "another impressive miracle." They say: "What sort of man is this?"

That's a strange question. They can see he's a man. He's standing right there. The question is about what kind of man does what they just watched him do.

Matthew doesn't rush to answer. He lets the question sit with the reader. It resurfaces when Jesus walks on water. It echoes when he forgives sins and heals the paralytic. It's still hovering when the disciples worship him in the boat and call him the Son of God.

I think the question is doing exactly what Matthew wants it to do. The Gospels aren't designed to give you a fast answer. They're designed to make you ask the question, sit with it, and watch the evidence accumulate until you can't avoid it anymore.

The disciples' confusion wasn't a failure of faith. It was the intended response.

08/25/2026

So, did Jesus ever say "I am God" in those exact words?

No.

But I'm no longer convinced that's the most useful question. It assumes a direct, modern-sounding statement would be clearer than the scriptural language the Gospel writers actually used. It also assumes we can isolate one sentence from an entire life and make it carry the whole argument.

The Gospels give us something different. They show Jesus doing the work of Israel's God — stilling the sea, walking on it, forgiving sins, receiving worship. They let the disciples' question accumulate. They build to a conclusion rather than handing it to you in one verse.

That honesty doesn't weaken the argument. It's the shape of the argument.

I wrote about this at length this week: how the Gospel writers develop Jesus' identity through pattern rather than proof text, and why that matters for how we read — and how we talk with people who have honest questions.

https://faithofmessiah.substack.com/p/jesus-never-said-i-am-god-he-didnt

08/24/2026

Check my recent Substack article for more.

08/23/2026

There is no Biblical justification for shaming women into staying with abusive husbands.

08/23/2026

God gave Israelite women the right to leave husbands who neglected their marital obligations.

Most readers focus solely on Deuteronomy 24:1-4 as the Torah's ruling on divorce. What they miss is the earlier verse that equally outlines a neglected woman's right to leave her husband.

Exodus 21:7-11 — A family falls into poverty and gives their daughter to another family in exchange for their debts being paid off. She then becomes the “concubine” of either the head of the house or one of his sons.

Disturbing?

Yes, but it was the cultural way for a family to survive poverty. The “concubine” status (Heb: ammah) meant she was his wife (see vs 10), but had a lower status in the household hierarchy if there were multiple wives.

Even though she is a paid-for wife, the man is still forbidden from mistreating her. He may not diminish her food, clothing, or “marital rights” (Heb: onath, traditionally understood as conjugal rights).

In other words, he could not neglect her, even though he bought her.

And if he did...not only could she leave, he could not collect on what he paid for her.

He had ZERO choice in the matter — if he neglected her, she had the legal right to leave him with no financial penalty.

And here's the thing. The Torah often gives an extreme circumstance and expects the audience to extrapolate additional meaning. Take the law of an ox goring a person. If an owner is responsible for his or her oxen's behavior, how much more is a dog's owner responsible if the dog mauls a child? Who would argue that the Torah doesn't address dog attacks, thus there is no recourse?

If the man was not allowed to neglect his wife, how much more was he not allowed to abuse his wife?

If a servant-wife — a concubine — has the right to be loved, provided for, and not abused how much more does any of God's daughters have such rights?

If a servant-wife could leave a neglectful or abusive husband without his consent, how much more does any of God's daughters have such rights?

08/22/2026

Did Jesus claim to be God?

Learn more about it here:

Jesus never said 'I am God' in plain words — but the Gospels build the case through action, not slogans. What sort of man is this?

07/24/2026

Latest teaching is now available:

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07/12/2026

In Matthew 11–12, hunger becomes evidence and a disabled man becomes a test case. A look at how religious surveillance turns Sabbath into evaluation — and what it would take to set the watching down.

https://faithofmessiah.substack.com/p/sabbath-on-trial