Has the Church Added Laws God Never Gave?

A panel of Torah teachers and a practicing lawyer examines three claims Rich Tidwell has asserted as binding law and used to condemn other believers. Working from a single principle, that sin must be defined by YAH’s law and not by personal conviction, fear, or tradition, the panel argues that each claim adds to Torah, forbids what YAH permits, or bears false witness. Tidwell rightly defends polygyny because where there is no law there is no transgression; the panel shows he abandons that very rule when he invents new prohibitions.

What this video covers

• A seven-canon framework for reading Scripture: Torah legislates sin, while history, wisdom, and pastoral counsel interpret but cannot create new law (no sin where YAH has not legislated; closed lists; specific over general; no condemning unclear texts; no retroactive guilt).
• The age-20 claim: Tidwell stacks verses about males being counted at 20 (census, military service, temple service, offerings) and infers a universal marriage age, even for women, which Torah never states.
• Why the inference collapses: Deuteronomy 22 calls a na’arah (youth girl) an ishah and holds her accountable for adultery, Numbers 30 places an accountable na’arah in her father’s house, and Ruth 4 calls Ruth a na’arah as she marries the older Boaz, proving a youth lawfully married an adult.
• The 18-to-19 gap his rule creates, leaving young women with no Torah protection from seducers, and the absurd result that a husband would “become a pedophile” at his own 20th birthday while his wife is still 19.
• The plural-marriage intimacy claim: the panel finds no Torah prohibition on physical contact between wives under one husband, argues Leviticus 18:18 and Romans 1 do not reach it, and locates the real sin in rebellion against headship, not attraction.
• The divorce claim: Tidwell teaches that remarriage after divorce is permanent adultery; the panel answers that Deuteronomy 24 plainly recognizes remarriage and that Yeshua, who Himself gave the law at Sinai (Acts 7), did not annul it (Matthew 5).
• The false-witness charge: labeling lawful marriages and brothers as “pedophiles” and “perverts” without witnesses, then blocking correction, violates the ninth commandment and the Matthew 18 process this panel is invoking.

Scriptures examined

• Deuteronomy 4:2; 12:32 and Proverbs 30:5-6 (do not add to the law)
• 1 Timothy 4:3 (forbidding marriage)
• Numbers 1; 14; 26 and Exodus 30:14 (the age-20 census, war, and offerings)
• Numbers 30 (a na’arah’s vows in her father’s house)
• Deuteronomy 22 (the youth girl called ishah and held accountable)
• Ruth 4:11-12 (a na’arah marrying an older man; the polygyny blessing)
• 1 Corinthians 7:36 (the father’s authority over a daughter’s marriage)
• Leviticus 18:18 and Romans 1 (tested against the plural-marriage intimacy claim)
• Deuteronomy 24; Matthew 5; Acts 7 (divorce and remarriage)
• Exodus 23:7 and the ninth commandment (false witness); Matthew 18 (correction)

Why it matters

When a teacher declares sinful what Torah leaves free, he binds the conscience of believers with laws YAH never gave and condemns the faithful as wicked. The panel’s aim is restoration: correct the doctrine by Scripture alone, protect families from unjust accusation, and call a brother back to accountability.