[Featured: ancient mosaic of what the Apostle Paul probably looked like]
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek." (NKJV transl.)
We at CHAIM Ministry are sometimes asked: how relevant this verse is for today? Clearly 2000 years ago St. Paul taught that the gospel of salvation should be offered to Jews first, as a priority. Then at some point in his ministry, he switched his emphasis. When they as a people largely rejected Jesus, he then went to the Gentiles; (i.e., "the nations"). [Acts 18:6]. The NIV translation says "Gentiles" in place of "Greeks" because throughout most of the Roman Empire if you weren't Jewish, you were either Greek or were so influenced by the Greeks in culture and language that you were Greek in everything but ethnicity.
So at some point, Paul changed his missionary tactics when his own people proved unresponsive. In a particularly nasty confrontation in Macedonia, "Paul was compelled by the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. But when they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, 'Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.' (Acts 18:6)
The amazing thing about evangelism to Jews is that for each clear statement Scripture makes about this, a multitude of additional questions arise. Reminds me of that quote attributed to Albert Einstein: "For every new thing I discover about the universe, it only creates more questions." No doubt, God's word on this is exceedingly rich, and thus there are many implications to everything it says. But Christian ministry to Jews is complex; probably more complex than to other peoples. But just because it's complex doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Because even after Paul went to the Gentiles in Macedonia, he still made a habit, in the regions and towns he visited, to try first to speak to his own countrymen. Some believed, most did not. You could say the same about most any people. So what else is new?
So then why is gospel ministry to Jews complex? And the corollary to that question is, "Why should it still should be done?"
Jews resist the gospel, yet Scripture promises a blessing to the Church for Jewish missions work.
Read Romans 11: 11 and 15. Regardless of what you think this text is saying, and granted, the text creates more questions than it answers, notice at least this: it's saying that if their rejection of Christ meant blessing for the nations, then their conversion to Him will yield blessings more abundant. Verse 15 is a parallel passage to verse 11. (It's saying the same thing.) And Paul wrote this after he had been commissioned as an apostle to the Gentles! He was saying that though the Jews were no longer his primary mission field, that nonetheless the blessing on their inclusion into the fold of Christ still remains. Why? Christians can debate this question endlessly, yet the statement still stands as true. Go figure.
Jews define themselves AS Jews by (among other things) NOT believing in Jesus.
There is no Jewish world consensus as to what a Jew actually is. The State of Israel has one definition. Reform ("liberal") Judaism has another. Orthodox Judaism has a third. There are those within each group who think of it as a culture, or a race, or a religion, or a mixture of all. The closest thing to a statement of faith they have is Maimonides's Thirteen Points, and not even all agree to that. There are atheistic, communistic, and religious Jews. But the one thing that they're in consensus about is that a Jew cannot be a Christian. For a Jew to call upon Jesus as Savior, Lord or Messiah, makes him a non-Jew in all the major Jewish communities. "Messianic" Judaism is not accepted as an alternate form of the faith. Consequently, for a Jew to believe in Jesus is a major cultural, social and religious hurdle. At the time when the N.T. Epistles and Gospels were written, this was not the problem that it is today. But in AD 90 the synagogues, at the Council of Jamnia (or "Jabneh") in Roman Palestine, declared all Jews who believed in Christ as heretics and "non-Jews". And this prejudice has remained until today. Yet if you read the rest of Romans 11, the text anticipates this Jewish rejection of Jesus, yet still priorities Jewish mission work. Go figure!
Any comments or question? Then let me hear from you. At www.chaim.org, or www.scripturesdramatized.com
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek." (NKJV transl.)
We at CHAIM Ministry are sometimes asked: how relevant this verse is for today? Clearly 2000 years ago St. Paul taught that the gospel of salvation should be offered to Jews first, as a priority. Then at some point in his ministry, he switched his emphasis. When they as a people largely rejected Jesus, he then went to the Gentiles; (i.e., "the nations"). [Acts 18:6]. The NIV translation says "Gentiles" in place of "Greeks" because throughout most of the Roman Empire if you weren't Jewish, you were either Greek or were so influenced by the Greeks in culture and language that you were Greek in everything but ethnicity.
So at some point, Paul changed his missionary tactics when his own people proved unresponsive. In a particularly nasty confrontation in Macedonia, "Paul was compelled by the Spirit and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. But when they opposed him and blasphemed, he shook his garments and said to them, 'Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.' (Acts 18:6)
The amazing thing about evangelism to Jews is that for each clear statement Scripture makes about this, a multitude of additional questions arise. Reminds me of that quote attributed to Albert Einstein: "For every new thing I discover about the universe, it only creates more questions." No doubt, God's word on this is exceedingly rich, and thus there are many implications to everything it says. But Christian ministry to Jews is complex; probably more complex than to other peoples. But just because it's complex doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. Because even after Paul went to the Gentiles in Macedonia, he still made a habit, in the regions and towns he visited, to try first to speak to his own countrymen. Some believed, most did not. You could say the same about most any people. So what else is new?
So then why is gospel ministry to Jews complex? And the corollary to that question is, "Why should it still should be done?"
Jews resist the gospel, yet Scripture promises a blessing to the Church for Jewish missions work.
Read Romans 11: 11 and 15. Regardless of what you think this text is saying, and granted, the text creates more questions than it answers, notice at least this: it's saying that if their rejection of Christ meant blessing for the nations, then their conversion to Him will yield blessings more abundant. Verse 15 is a parallel passage to verse 11. (It's saying the same thing.) And Paul wrote this after he had been commissioned as an apostle to the Gentles! He was saying that though the Jews were no longer his primary mission field, that nonetheless the blessing on their inclusion into the fold of Christ still remains. Why? Christians can debate this question endlessly, yet the statement still stands as true. Go figure.
Jews define themselves AS Jews by (among other things) NOT believing in Jesus.
There is no Jewish world consensus as to what a Jew actually is. The State of Israel has one definition. Reform ("liberal") Judaism has another. Orthodox Judaism has a third. There are those within each group who think of it as a culture, or a race, or a religion, or a mixture of all. The closest thing to a statement of faith they have is Maimonides's Thirteen Points, and not even all agree to that. There are atheistic, communistic, and religious Jews. But the one thing that they're in consensus about is that a Jew cannot be a Christian. For a Jew to call upon Jesus as Savior, Lord or Messiah, makes him a non-Jew in all the major Jewish communities. "Messianic" Judaism is not accepted as an alternate form of the faith. Consequently, for a Jew to believe in Jesus is a major cultural, social and religious hurdle. At the time when the N.T. Epistles and Gospels were written, this was not the problem that it is today. But in AD 90 the synagogues, at the Council of Jamnia (or "Jabneh") in Roman Palestine, declared all Jews who believed in Christ as heretics and "non-Jews". And this prejudice has remained until today. Yet if you read the rest of Romans 11, the text anticipates this Jewish rejection of Jesus, yet still priorities Jewish mission work. Go figure!
Any comments or question? Then let me hear from you. At www.chaim.org, or www.scripturesdramatized.com
