Tom Leadbetter

father to five daughters, grandfather to 12 grandchildren. Lover of God and the Bible.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

Rom 4:17, (as it is written, “A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS HAVE I MADE YOU”)

Gen 17:4-5, Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying,
4 “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you,
And you will be the father of a multitude of nations.
5 “No longer shall your name be called Abram,
But your name shall be Abraham;
For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@Chesschick01 How blind can this lady be to the reality of how things are in which direction they are heading? What a powerful example of self deception.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

I almost agree with you, but not exactly.

You’re correct, in indicating that all the penalty has been paid that would block us from going to heaven. That debt is paid in full and we will never experience it.

But you are incorrect in presuming that there are no consequences for breaking the law. Those consequences appear in this life and will appear in the next life as well. They can just never prevent you from being in eternity with God.

There are both temporal and eternal consequences to the Christian who will fully sins, it just does not cost you your salvation but it most definitely will cost you. Galatians 6:7 do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Every man will reap what he sows. Thinking otherwise is to be self deceived.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@WhiteHouse @DumisaniTemsgen Trump, I have been 100% supporter of youth since the beginning, but what hypocrisy. You say of necessity American must respond but Hezbollah attack Israel and you tell them to back off. you’re about to lose one of your biggest supporters.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

It’s pretty brave of us to sit back and wonder why the people of Iran don’t rise up (again) and rush the machine guns (again) that mowed down tens of thousands of their people only weeks ago. Geee Piers, it would have been nice if the islamic regime had not implemented gun control and had left their citizen’s armed, so they could fight against their oppressors. Just saying.🤷‍♂️

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

Hebrews chapter 8 is frequently cited as definitive proof that the Mosaic Law has been revoked, rendered obsolete, or replaced by an entirely new covenantal framework. From a One Household perspective, this conclusion arises not from the text itself, but from assumptions imported into it. A careful, plain reading of Hebrews 8 demonstrates that the author is not criticizing the Torah, nor announcing its abolition, but is instead identifying a fundamental change in how the administration of the earlier covenant (Torah applied from outside in) is being replaced by the New Covenant (Torah applied from inside out) without negating God’s prior instruction.
In short, it is NOT the Torah that is declared obsolete, it is ink that delivered it. The content of the Torah is unchangeable Devine instruction; it is paper and ink that has been shown to be inadequate in getting the job done. The “Old Covenant” was the Torah delivered to the Hebrews in “letters written on Stone” or on parchment - something the Hebrews could hold in their hand. The “New Covenant” also contains the same Torah (and so much more), but this time delivered by the hands of the Holy Spirit, written on the “inner man’s” heart (2 Corth 3:3-7).
Hebrews 8:7–8 states that if the first covenant had been “faultless,” there would have been no need for a second, and that God “found fault” with it. The text itself immediately clarifies where that fault lies—not in the Law, but in the people. This distinction is critical. Scripture consistently affirms the goodness, wisdom, and divine origin of the Torah, and Hebrews does not contradict that testimony. The “fault” being addressed is that externalinstruction, however perfect, cannot reliably produce inward transformation. The old covenant arrangement depended primarily on outside-in compliance, while the human heart remained unchanged. The problem, therefore, was not what God commanded, but the mode by which those commands were received and obeyed.
This becomes unmistakably clear when Hebrews 8 defines the New Covenant by directly quoting Jeremiah 31.
Jerimiah 31:33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law (Torah) within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The defining feature of the New Covenant is not the replacement of God’s law, but its internalization: “I will put My law within them, and on their hearts I will write it.” If the New Covenant consisted in discarding the Torah, this language would be incoherent. God does not write what He intends to abolish onto the human heart. Rather, the New Covenant supplies what the previous arrangement lacked—the internal work of God’s Spirit that enables genuine, durable covenant faithfulness. In this sense, the New Covenant is not less than Torah, but more than external Torah. It does not change the content of God’s instruction; it changes the location and power by which that instruction (Torah) operates.
A helpful biblical analogy for understanding Hebrews 8 is found in Paul’s description of an existing physical person being made alive in 2 Corinthians 5:17, which states:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a newcreation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Importantly, no serious reader understands this verse to mean that a believer’s former self is obliterated in an absolute sense. Conversion does not erase personality, memory, will, ethnicity, or personal history. Rather, the decisive change is the indwelling of the Spirit, producing a genuinely new mode of life, orientation, and covenant standing, while the person himself remains continuous with who he was before. The “old” has passed away in terms of authority and governing power, not in the sense of annihilation. In the same way, the New Covenant described in Hebrews 8 should be understood as to Torah (teachings and ways of God) being “made alive” (Eph 2:5) and effective by being written into a man’s heart, He is not obliterated. God does not discard His prior revelation or contradict Himself; instead, He internalizes His law, transforming how it operates within the covenant people. Just as the believer becomes truly new without ceasing to be the same person, the New Covenant is genuinely new without nullifying or erasing the substance of what came before. This analogy preserves both continuity and transformation—precisely the balance Hebrews 8 requires if it is to remain faithful to the broader witness of Scripture.
Hebrews 8 also explicitly states that this New Covenant is made “with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” This language cannot be dismissed without doing violence to the text. The author does not redefine Israel out of existence, nor does he collapse Israel into a generalized “church.” At the same time, the New Testament clearly teaches that gentiles are brought into the blessings of this covenant through faith in Messiah. One Household Theology holds both truths together: the New Covenant is Israel-anchored in its stated recipients, and yet its redemptive benefits—forgiveness, the Spirit, and internal transformation—are extended to gentiles as they are brought into the one household of God. Hebrews 8 therefore resists both supersessionism and exclusion, affirming covenant continuity without denying covenant expansion.
The promises that “they shall all know Me” and that God will “remember their sins no more” further reinforce this point. These statements do not announce a new era of lawlessness or diminished obedience. Rather, they describe the deep internal cure for the very failures that plagued the old covenant arrangement. Forgiveness addresses guilt; heart-writing addresses rebellion. The forgiven person is not freed from God’s instruction, but freed from condemnation and inward hostility toward it. As other New Testament passages affirm, the result is not contempt for the Law, but a renewed delight in it within the inner man.
Romans 7:22 For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man,

Hebrews 8:13 is often treated as the decisive argument against Torah continuity: “When He said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.” Several observations are essential here. First, the language is process-oriented. The covenant is described as “becoming obsolete” and “ready” to disappear—not as having already vanished. No explicit terminus is stated in the text. Illustration: Tell me precisely (from scripture), on what exact date was the covenant officially and totally made obsolete? Second, “obsolete” must be understood in light of the argument the author has been making. The earlier covenant is obsolete in the sense that it is no longer God’s official mechanism for producing covenant faithfulness, not because it was false, evil, or mistaken. What has become outdated is an arrangement that relied primarily on external (written) regulation without the permanent internal transformation now provided by the Spirit.
In other words, Hebrews 8 does not teach that the Torah itself has been annulled, but that a covenant administration lacking the internal power to change hearts has been surpassed by one that supplies precisely that missing element. The New Covenant does not discard God’s prior revelation; it completes what was always necessary for that revelation to be lived out faithfully – insertion into the heart.
From a One Household perspective, Hebrews 8 therefore functions as a defense of continuity, not a declaration of rupture. It explains why the old covenant arrangement could not accomplish what it promised, affirms the goodness and enduring relevance of God’s instruction, and introduces the New Covenant as the divinely intended means by which that instruction is finally written where it belongs—on the human heart. Far from undermining the Torah, Hebrews 8 explains how God ensures its faithful embodiment within a redeemed people drawn from both Israel and the nations.

Objection & Response — Hebrews 8:13 (“The First Is Obsolete”)
Objection:
Hebrews 8:13 states that the first covenant has been made “obsolete” and is “ready to disappear,” which proves that the Mosaic Law has been abolished and is no longer authoritative.
Response:
Hebrews 8:13 does not say that the Torah has been abolished, only that the covenant administration associated with it is “becoming obsolete.” It is critical to understand a subtle point - the context defines the problem being addressed: the old arrangement lacked the internal power to transform the human heart. The New Covenant does not discard God’s instruction, but remedies this deficiency by writing the Law on the heart through the Spirit (Jeremiah 31). What has grown obsolete is an external, letter-based mode of covenant enforcement—not the Law itself, which the same passage assumes is still meaningful enough for God to internalize it. To conclude that Hebrews 8:13 teaches the revocation of the Torah is to read the verse in isolation and in contradiction to its own stated definition of the New Covenant.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

Sorry, Barbie, but I’m gonna have to disagree with you on this one. If God gives you a map, I think he intended you to read it. I don’t wanna find myself in a position where I take huge portions of God’s revealed truth and declare it not useful.

For example, if God tells you in numerous places and in numerous ways that the entire world is going to oppose Israel in the end days, and that he will step in and destroy them for that choice, that tells me there’s going to be enormous pressure to convince me to hate Israel. If the whole world is doing it, then the whole world agrees that Israel should be attacked. That is not a group I want to get sucked into because I wasn’t paying attention.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

Steve, that will work for a while, but eventually all the nations of the Earth will come against Jerusalem (Zachariah 12 & 14) because God has unequivocally gone on record about who he wants in that little slice of land in the Middle East. The world cannot allow God to have the authoritative final word. Can’t tell you about Greenland or South America, but I know God’s position on the land of “Canaan”. At that point, when push comes to shove, and it comes down to the numerous passages God explicitly directed to the Jews in the Old Testament about his allotment of the land to them, then Michael will turn on Israel because his logic will cease to work. God is intentionally picking a fight with the world to see if his straightforward commands trump men’s logic and religious traditions.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

Michael, it’s true that Israel has been removed from the land for near 2000 years. That is for sure longer than the 70 years God removed them from the land when he sent them to Babylon. But according to your theology, God should have a disposed of them back when he sent them to Babylon. They are back in the land now, just as he rocked them back from Babylon. Please be careful because you will put yourself in opposition to God if you dismiss the bigger picture. Yes he is bringing Gentiles into his family, but no, he has not an abandoned national Israel. I have read and studied every occurrence of the word Israel that occurs in the New Testament, it appears over 75 times. There is not a single occurrence that is not speaking of Israel as the nation that God selected in the Old Testament. Your replacement theology is entirely bogus. Read every use of the word Israel yourself in the New Testament and embrace the obvious. You should look to the scriptures, not the traditions of your denomination for truth

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@karma44921039 Looking more closely at it, it looks like I should not have sent that to you. Looking more closely seems to indicate that is not yet been peer reviewed nor officially published. My bad.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@rabbriansamuel It is really an “assertion“ from some people, but from God‘s point of view, it is not a “thing“

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@rabbriansamuel Hope so, but not official until the Daniel 9 covenant is affirmed

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

Hi Matt, unfortunately, even in the Christian church, you are standing alone for the most part.

Having been a Christian for the last 52 years and in my travels having been in many churches, sadly what you experience is the absolute norm.

Everybody brings their worldview and personalities with them when they come to Christ. People are an absolute mess, and I’m no exception. The percentage of “well reasoning“ Christians is usually one or two out of a 100.

I would recommend finding one, two or more other men that take things as seriously as you do (i.e., as they should). If you don’t, you will start to feel like a pariah in solitary confinement .

BTW, finding another man that “thinks” is no easy task and they may not even be in the church you attend. This is often very difficult to do, but God has always (eventually) honored that pursuit for me if I stick with it and searched diligently.

I totally understand your pain and frustration, but God gives us those “thorns in the flesh“ to keep us humble and depending (begging) on him for help.

I’m not looking forward to it, but I think that only serious persecution of the church will start remedying the problem by weeding out the shallow and the non-serious amongst us.

I don’t even know where you live or what time zone you’re in but if things get desperate enough, track me down and I would be more than willing to have phone conversations once in a while.

God bless you, brother

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@rabbriansamuel Yes, for Jews, those that believe in Jesus or those that don’t, but not for Gentiles

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@WarClandestine Hope you’re right, but what the heck was Tucker Carlson doing at the oil Summit in the White House the other day. Disgusting!!

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@Joel7Richardson It seems like #2 with a strong debunking of preterism would be the best for opposing the increasing antisemitism increasingly rising up from within the “Christian Church“

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@krassenstein You’re an idiot if you think people are claiming he made the Nazi salute. People are just mocking how the left-wing media did it to Elon. Giving you some of your own medicine. Have you no sense of self-awareness? 😂

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@RealAlexJones Just saw your heckling of Marco Rubio. Also, just left following your account. What a jerk.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@Adi13 Alex Jones. Glad I saw this. I’m done with you.

[Tom Leadbetter @TKLeadbetter]

@ChrisLoesch @DumisaniTemsgen Carlson has no sense at all of the foundation of western civilization. Nothing in common with Israel? Really? The 10 Commandments don’t really mean much to an idiot like this.