Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Why do you think The Law or the Torah applies to Christians?

Answer:  Simple.  If a person was to just read the Word, without the interference of doctrines learned from men, it is very apparent that there is only one body (Ephesians 4:4-6) and one faith; that God requires a certain amount of obedience from His children, that His Word is Good, and that it applies to all people everywhere.  Also, if the average Christian would think through some of these doctrines of men he or she has been taught, they would see that many of them are contradictory.  For instance, we are taught that God doesn't change, and that we can rely on His Word as a Rock, yet apparently Jesus came to change that very Word!

Question:  Why don't you use different terms for God (like YHVH or Yahveh) or Jesus (Yeshua) like other sites do?

Answer:  We're glad you asked!  For a while we used the tetragrammaton (YHVH) as the closest approximation of God's actual name used in the Word, and Yahveh is just one pronunciation of it.  The name we use for Jesus (Yeshua) is actually His Name.  You wouldn't go around calling Him 'Bob,' if that wasn't His Name, would you?  But after a while we realized that God and Jesus have many names, and the English ones are just fine for now.  They also help people to understand better, and avoid confusing issues or getting people wrongly focused on supposedly 'correct' spellings and pronunciations.

Question:  Why do you call the Old Testament the Tanakh, and the New Testament the Apostolic Scriptures?

Answer:  Although we frequently use OT and NT for reference and ease of understanding, they really are very misleading.  OT and NT are artificial in that some men put them on the Book around the third century.  We think Tanakh (for the OT) is better in that it stands for the Hebrew words Torah, Nevi'im, and Ketuvim, meaning Instruction (or Law), the Prophets, and the Writings.  Jesus calls the OT by these names also (although sometimes He abbreviated to 'Moses and the Prophets').  For the NT we prefer the name Apostolic Scriptures or Writings because that's what they are.  They are not the New Testament or New Covenant at all.

Question:  Didn't the destruction of the Temple mean that the 'old' Jewish system was removed in favor of the system Jesus established?

Answer:  The problem with this idea is that the Temple wasn't destroyed.  What?  You ask.  There is historical proof that it was!  Well, what you are thinking of is the earthly Temple, which is a copy of the Heavenly.  The one in heaven is still there, and the earthly Temples (and Tabernacle) were built on its' pattern.  Also, we are told by the Word that those who belong to Him are living stones in a Temple.  So the 'Temple' was not really destroyed, it moved from a pattern in heaven that was copied to a tent (representative of God dwelling inside us), then copied to a building (actually two different buildings), back to a 'tent' or Tabernacle (if you will, which means 'living inside us').  The separate physical building (or tent) was only around for about 1,000 of our 6,000 year recorded history.  What did we do for a relationship with God the other 5,000 years?

Question:  Why do you have to use the word 'Torah' all the time?  Couldn't you just use the word 'Bible?'  The average Christian doesn't know what Torah is, and when they do know it is seen as negative.

Answer:  We could use another word, and frequently do.  We also like to use 'Word of God' or just plain 'Word' too.  However, there is no way to minimize the impact of the word Torah, or 'Law,' or 'Commandments,' because the problem is not with the word but with people.  Obviously, the root of the problem with the average Christian is with obedience (in any form), so the choice of word would not help.  People have problems with words because of an internal condition, not external.

Question:  Why did you call yourselves "Won't Make It To Mainstream" Ministries?  Why did you change your name to "The Word of God" Ministries?

Answer:  The first name was sort of a tongue-in-cheek poke at the fact that the majority of what we teach will not make it into the 'mainstream' of the Church (or any other organization).  We are aware that we do not tickle very many ears, but we feel we are in good company because it has ever been thus with God's Word.  The change to the new name was an attempt to be more specific about what we do and what we think is the most important thing.  Many organizations say they teach Torah (or the Word) but in reality promote various pet doctrines such as the superiority of Judaism over other religious systems.  This, unfortunately, is the case with much of the Messianic movement.  We associated with some of those groups for a while, but when we realized their true focus we opted to define ourselves along more biblical lines.