Witnessing to Jews

[Smiley]

Since I can't post in the thread where this is being discussed, I'll have to start another one so you guys can hear from people who do this already.

Since I'm a newbie and you don't know me from Adam, allow a short introduction:

I believe the driving heart of Baptists is the Great Commission, (almost to a fault of overlooking discipleship outside of that, but another topic). I so appreciate that I can bring a friend to a Baptist church and they will always hear the gospel and get an invitation to covenant with God every Sunday.

But because I believe this particular topic is CENTRAL to a world-wide revival, and I trust that is what my Baptist friends want also, I'm going to say some provocative things to the ears of those who have rejected the natural branches having any importance to this desire. PLEASE understand that I prefer talking to people who disagree with me in the hope of at least introducing a different perspective than they've known. My purpose for doing so is tied up in Romans 11:12-15

I'm not here to attack anyone. I'm quite secure that I'm well along the path leading to The Truth and have no need to argue. What I'd like is to challenge some of the perspectives I'm hearing from folks that obviously no nothing about the Jews, or their very important part in The Kingdom.



1 Corinthians 1:22New King James Version (NKJV)
22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom;


Greeks seek after wisdom. They have a need to understand the theory behind something before they can intellectually agree. It has to work methodically and logically, even when talking about supernatural matters sometimes. They look for a pattern and try to ascertain the end in advance.

The term "greek" does not refer to people from Greece. It's talking about the entire civilized gentile world here. Alexander the Great came about 150 years before Jesus and installed the closest thing we've had to a "One World Government" since. The Romans just took his ideas about government, military, religion, civil society....and re-interpreted in latin.

So much of what we in the West assume the rest of the planet understands comes from Greek philosophy, culture, and even religion. A country that has not yet been "hellenized" in this way is called "Third World". Christianity (as people in the civilized world know it) is ate up with greco-philosophy, and the Bible is being read by people who don't know that there is something else. How could they know to look outside of where they are?

Not so with the Jewish people.

We are most separated from them by a calendar and a language. Theirs greatly predates ours and we would do well to learn their foundation before speaking to them like we're an expert on anything. Especially the Bible.

This one thing keeps us separated in Him more than (most of) you realize. Their heritage, language, calendar, and faith go back with The Creator to at least Shem (Son of Noah) and down through Abraham 3,000 years prior to Jesus.

That's a little longer than the greeks, yet western Christians view the scriptures through the eyes of Marcion, the first heretic in the Times of the Gentiles. Not saying that to insult anyone, just a historical fact. But do you know what his heretical premise was? It was that the God of the Old Testament was about Law & Judgement, while the God of the New Testament was about Love & Grace.

Does this heresy sound familiar to any of you?

Now, if you believe that God is One God, then you can't stick a guitar pick between the Father and the Son, much less make them contradict themselves.

Once you understand the language and the calendar of the Jews and mix it with the Revelation of the Holy Spirit, the formerly complicated becomes simple. The mysterious becomes practical. The mystical becomes visible.

And then you will see how He is still working in the Jews and through them for His glory...and for yours. It seems that gratitude would be the mark of real Christian response to them, doesn't it? The Newer Covenant tells us this in so many places that I wonder how anyone could miss it?

But that's what I'm here to talk about. Jump in?

 

[Smiley]

So the other part of that verse states that Jews require a sign...

The Spirit of the Sons of Zion is about the witness more than the intellectual acceptance of what the witness says. In other words, they just want to see it work well before they care about why it matters.

So you can talk about the theological theories of why and how (greco-wisdom) but they are looking for integrity. Character. Reliability.


Those are the qualities that a life of true faith in God will produce. If you have that and can relate to a Jewish person on a personal level (not a religious one) then you have a chance of opening a dialogue that your Jewish friend will lead. They will want to know how your faith made you so faithful.

This is what Rav Shaul (Rabbi Paul) was teaching in the verse. He was the only Hellenistic Jew of all the disciples, being raised in Tarsus. This is why he was the only qualified as "Apostle to the Gentiles". He understood the greek. Kefa (Peter) did not, and if you remember, had an argument with God about going to them. Yet Paul helped the rest of the Apostles to understand how the greek were receiving the Spirit of Holiness at the hearing of the gospel.

But I digress....

Talk to your Jewish friends like you'd talk to anyone else. Just don't put any pressure on them about making a decision about Jesus immediately and they will eventually ask you....assuming there is a sign of faith within view. If they don't do that in the first 6 months, invite them to church very casually. And then act like it's not a big deal if they don't show up and invite them again.

 

[MennoSota]

Paul showed his Jewish friends Jesus in the Hebrew Bible. Show Yeshua within the text and pray that your Jewish friends will honestly explore the text like the synagogue at Berea.

 

[JonC]

I agree with you in part, and disagree in part. I agree that the idea the God of the Old Testament was about Law & Judgment while the God of the New Teseament is about love and grace is a misunderstanding. God is about righteousness, holiness, glory. This is expressed in things like judgment and mercy, law and grace. But the God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. I do not believe the Jews held a legalistic view of salvation (they believed they belonged to the people of God by virtue of being born an Isralite). But they do seem to have held a legalistic application of grace in terms of inhereting covenantal blessings (and perhaps more of a national rather than individual thrust to this application). I suspect we agree here.

Where I may disagree is that we too often tend to evaluate Judaism with the Hebrew religion, ignoring that the religion went through change before and after Christ. When we look at witnessing to Jewish people we may also need to realize the fact that between Judaism and Christianity, Judaism is the newer religion (although both are directly related to the Hebrew faith). What we see in contemporary Judaism (IMHO, regardless of what type of Judaism you examine) is what the religion became from a trajectory established prior to the Hasmonean Dynasty (by 70 AD the religion had already fragmented enough, I think, to see contemporary Judaism taking shape apart from the Temple itself).

 

[Adonia]

First things first, you must have respect for them. They are your elder brothers and have been God's chosen people long before you came along. The fact is they are well aware of Jesus Christ, but just do not believe that he was the promised Messiah.

Years ago I used to deliver kosher meat to them and I would engage the people I dealt with in normal conversation, talking about many things and inevitably about God and one's religious experience. To my mind you cannot come off holier than thou (as if you have all the answers) and to me mutual respect is the best way to go.