Chuck and the Kabbalah

Last night I talked to Gretchen who had looked at the Chrisma Magazine article about Steve Lapp from Will's blog. At the bottom of the Chrisma article, there was a conversation stream about Chuck Pierce and the Kabbalah. We looked at the links, and found a blog all about how Chuck had to be a Kabbalaist because he uses phrases that are similar to the Kabbalah. It juxtaposed a paragraph from the Kabbalah, and then a paragraph in one of Chuck's letters. There were a number of phrases that were very similar. However, the content of the paragraphs had very different meanings. 

Today while I was at work, I heard Chuck mention the Kabbalah issue to someone next door. As he walked past our door, I asked him about it. He said, "Well, if someone's not mad at you for something, you're not saying much..." and we talked a little more. I shared how my sister had called asking me about it. 

So today, after I left, Chuck sent out the following email. It's funny for me because I didn't know anything about it until yesterday, but I thought that it might be interesting for ya'll to see what Chuck and Robert have to say about the whole thing.

Dear Friends:

 Many times we are asked how what we teach on the months, tribes and the Rosh Chodesh blessing of God is different from the ancient occult Jewish practice of Kabbalah.  There is some truth in the Kabbalah when it comes to the names of God and the ancient mysteries connected to the Hebraic letters.  However, Kabbalistic signs and writings must be coupled with magical practices for them to have power. This is different from understanding Hebraic times and seasons.  By understanding the times and seasons we live in, we can stay in God’s perfect time and then experience His supernatural power and Spirit.  True students of Kabbalah live a very strict, stringent life and resist any sort of secularism.  Though one sect believes in joyous types of celebration, legalistic rule is part of their structure.  None of those are practices at Glory of Zion. 

 Robert Heidler has written an awesome article that we have used over the past several years when individuals who do not understand why we teach on God’s biblical timing throughout His Word inquire of us as to what we believe concerning God’s Firstfruits blessing.  I think you will enjoy this teaching.   Kabbalah believes that God Himself cannot be really known.  Though He interacts with mankind, we really cannot see God in our midst and know Him personally.  We believe you can seek God, find Him, know Him, and have an intimate, personal relationship with Him. 

 I want to caution you not to discount all supernatural manifestation and teaching at this time in history.  We, in Western thought, tend to discount anything that is not totally rational.  We must remember that we are spirit, soul and body made in the likeness of God.  Kabbalah is linked with oral tradition.  We believe in the Word of God.  Therefore, the Word of God is the foundation and basis for all teaching that occurs here in this ministry.

 Please remember that Jesus tells us that we will worship in Spirit and in truth.  Therefore, you must get to know the Spirit of truth as well as the written Word.  Do not be like the Pharisees when Jesus said to them in John 5:38-40, “But you do not have His word abiding in you because whom He sent, Him you do not believe.  You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life and these are they which testify of Me.  But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life!”   

 I want to encourage you to seek the gifts of His Spirit and ask His presence to fill your life. Get to know His presence in your atmosphere.  Do not just live the rational life of conforming to the world in your generation.  Also, gain knowledge of how God intersects with us in time.  You can do this by reading Interpreting the Times and God’s Unfolding Battle Plan.  You have been set in time and you can move from blessing to blessing until blessings overtake you.  The Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity that is reigning in the earth realm guiding us.  Get to know the Father and the Son through the Spirit. 

 Blessings,

Chuck D. Pierce

 Hebraic Understanding Vs Kabbalah

 Several have asked if there is a similarity between what we teach prophetically at Glory of Zion, and the occult Jewish practice of Kabbalah.  My answer to that is a clear and unambiguous “no!”   I have looked at websites and material that present Kabalistic teaching and I agree that it is occult and clearly demonic.

At Glory of Zion, we operate from a prophetic understanding, based on God’s revelation of Himself to the ancient Jewish people (Rom 3:1-2).  Through His historic dealings with Israel, God imparted to the Jewish people a unique “Hebraic” mindset.  This Hebraic mindset was also the mindset of the early church.  It is part of the “rich sap from the olive root” that Paul writes about in Romans 11:17.

When the church rejected its Jewish roots in the 4th century, it lost the Hebraic mindset, and adopted a pagan Greek worldview.  Because of this, there are many things in Scripture, and in the world around us, that we have a hard time understanding.  

Because the church has so embraced a pagan Greek worldview, Christians often find the biblical worldview strange and unfamiliar, but it is essential to understand if we are to correctly interpret what God is saying to His church today.

The Hebraic mindset includes the presupposition that God has revealed Himself and His purposes in many ways:  Through His calendar, through His providential dealings with Israel, and even through the Hebrew language.  The Jews believe that the Hebrew language was the original language given by God in Eden, and the Hebrew alphabet was given by God to enable Torah to be recorded. (Interestingly, many archaeologists now believe that written alphabetic language probably originated with the Hebrew people.) 

The kind of thing Chuck and I do, concerning the meaning of the months, tribes, years, etc, does not grow out of Kabalistic teaching, but out of an understanding of the Hebraic mindset God imparted to Israel.

In our English alphabet, for example, a "letter" is just a symbol used to represent a sound.  In the Hebrew alphabet, however, individual letters not only represent sounds, but ideas.  They each have meaning.  (The Hebrew letters were originally pictograms, like the Chinese alphabet.)   Even the shapes of the letters can be significant.

The meaning of a Hebrew word was often determined by the collective meanings of the individual letters.   This is not Kabbalah.  It was always part of the Hebrew language.  Jesus, Himself, taught that even the smallest Hebrew letter, and the smallest part of a Hebrew letter had lasting significance (Mt. 5:18).

It is true that those who practice Kabbalah also begin with a Hebraic view of reality.  Because of their background in Judaism, they have a Hebraic understanding of God’s times and seasons.  They recognize that the Hebrew alphabet has rich meaning.  The works of darkness always begin with a grain of truth, but then mix the truth with error.  Kabbalah begins with truth that is inherent in God’s creation and perverts it into something occultic. 

If we are to accuse Glory of Zion of Kabbalah we must also accuse every astronomer of practicing astrology, since they both astronomers and astrologers study the heavens and track the positions of stars, planets, and constellations.  Recognizing the truth God embedded in the Hebrew language is not Kabbalah, any more than all study of the heavens is astrology!

The problem for many Christians today is that we have inherited a Greek rationalistic mindset that has no appreciation of the Bible’s Hebraic context.

If you read even a little of the writings associated with Kabbalah, you quickly see that what they do is VERY much different than what Chuck and I are doing. 

We have had a number of Jews listen to our presentation of the Hebrew year.  These have included both messianic and non-messianic Jews, and even a Torah scribe from Jerusalem.  Their usual response is that they have never heard a Gentile with such a good understanding of the Hebraic way of thinking.  None of them considered what we are doing as Kabbala.

I believe the Hebrew months, alphabet, and numbering system are an incredible testimony of God's providential working, and His blessing on the Jewish people.  

I hope this helps!

Many blessings,
Dr. Robert Heidler