Horst Krueger Receives Th.M. Degree

We are pleased to announce that on the 14th of August Jerusalem Perspective's representative in Germany, Horst Krueger, was granted the Master of Theology degree from New Covenant International University in Lake Worth, Florida. His dissertation, "Law and Liberty according to Jesus and Paul: Law and Legalism, Liberty and Libertinism," was written under the supervision of Dr. Andreas Franz of Uhrsleben, Germany. We extend our congratulations to Horst on this achievement. Kol hakavod (in Hebrew, literally, "all of the honor," that is, "A tip of the hat!") to Horst for his perseverance and for his many months of dedicated work.

Here are four paragraphs from a summary of Horst's thesis:

"In his epistle to the Romans, but above all in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, we find a number of halachic rules for the church that Paul had taken from the law itself, from Jesus' words, from apostolic tradition or even created himself. People--whether Jews or Gentiles--with a new heart had to know how to live together in Shalom. Paul also made it clear that law and grace were the expression of God's love and did not contradict each other.

"Jesus faced the legalism of his days with grace, love and faith. So did Paul. Jesus, like Paul, warned against incorrectly understood freedom and licentiousness that he called lawlessness and anarchy, which proved to be the characteristics of several historical epochs. For Paul it was important to show sensitivity and consideration towards people.

"Jesus' and Paul's teachings were already misinterpreted during their lifetimes, a fact that would exacerbate itself soon thereafter, as we may see from early Christian authors like Justin, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Chrysostom and others, who used the term 'deicide' in connection with the Jews' handing Jesus over to the Romans.

"The new heart, the circumcision of the heart as a work of the Holy Spirit, is also seen in Isaiah 2:3: 'Torah will go out from Zion'--from the day of Pentecost in Zion, in Jerusalem, when the Holy Spirit was poured out. Since then, the New Covenant is being written into the hearts of God's people. They obey and do his will out of their inner being. The new life needs the instruction, the teaching through God's word, the Torah, now going out from Zion--not as a new law, but the old one in a new form, no longer on stone tablets but on the tablets of the new heart."