By Dale Weckbacher
Romans 10:14-15
How then shall they
call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him
of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? 15 And
how shall they preach unless they are sent? As it is written:
"How beautiful
are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace,
Who bring glad
tidings of good things!"
NKJV
As we observed last Saturday, Jewish people have a
resistance to the Gospel based upon their upbringing. We discussed how we must be careful with the
language we use when speaking to them because what they hear based upon their
beliefs is not what we are actually saying.
In this posting, we will be looking at what we as believers can do to
communicate the Gospel to Jewish people.
In his book “A Rabbi Looks at the Last Days,” Rabbi Bernis
gives believers seven things we can do to communicate the Gospel to our Jewish
friends. We can,
1) Help
our Jewish friends to learn who Yeshua is and that He did not commit the
atrocities committed against the Jewish people – Jesus taught His followers to
be peacemakers (Matthew 5:9). Therefore,
the atrocities committed against the Jewish people by Christians went against
what Yeshua taught. Just as Jews have
violated the teachings of the law in their history, Christians too have not
been perfect and therefore have sadly violated the teachings of Jesus in their
history. However, this does not change
the fact that Jesus, Yeshua, is the promised Jewish Messiah and as such is
someone Jews and Gentiles should follow.
2) Share
the Gospel from the Hebrew Scriptures – To the Jews, there is no New Testament,
only the Tanakh or what Christians refer to as the Old Testament. Two of Jesus’ followers were walking on the
road to Emmaus when the resurrected Lord joined them. However, these men’s eyes were closed and
they did not realize they were talking to Jesus. On the way Jesus expounded to them in all the
Scriptures the things concerning Himself (Luke 24:19-27). Since the New Testament had not been written
yet, the Scripture Jesus was referring to must have been the Tanakh. The Apostles also used the Tanakh to share
the Gospel (Acts 28:23). It has been said
the New Testament is contained in the Old Testament and that the Old Testament
is explained by the New Testament. Therefore,
when sharing with a Jewish person we must begin with Scripture about Messiah in
the Old Testament and show them how Yeshua fulfilled them in his ministry. However, as with many Christians, not all
Jewish people have studied the Scripture.
Their unbelief is therefore not based on Scriptural facts but what
someone has told them. By expounding on
Old Testament Scripture, something they will accept, we can actually begin
teaching them about their own Scriptures, and show them that Yeshua is their
promised Messiah.
3) Share
Messianic prophecies – Contained in Tanakh are prophecies regarding
Messiah. This is a great place to begin
but we also must keep in mind that Jesus is coming again and therefore there
are Messianic prophecies yet to be fulfilled.
However we can point out prophecies such as Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 that
speak of the suffering Messiah and graphically depict death by crucifixion. Since the writing of both of these prophecies
occurred before the invention of execution by crucifixion, the prophets had no
historical basis from which to concoct a story.
We therefore must believe the prophets were writing under the inspiration
of the Holy Spirit about the brutal death of Messiah as a sacrifice for the
sins of all humanity including Jews. We
can also cite how Messiah would be born in Bethlehem as Yeshua was (Micha5:2-5) and how Messiah had to come prior to the destruction of the second
Temple (Daniel 9:24-27) which occurred in 70 A.D.
4) Address
the Trinity and Yeshua’s divinity – The Jewish people believe in one God and
thus have objections to the Christian theology of the Trinity. As such, they believe Messiah will be nothing
more than a special anointed man sent from God to save His people. However, Isaiah 48:16 says the following,
"Come near to Me, hear this:
I have not spoken in
secret from the beginning;
From the time that it
was, I was there.
And now the Lord GOD
and His Spirit
Have sent Me."
NKJV
This scripture speaks of the Lord
God, His Spirit, and the One sent by Him who has existed from the beginning. In other words, the trinity is contained in
Jewish Scripture. However, this does not
mean there are three gods but three manifestations of the one True God. In another one of his books, “A Rabbi Looks
at Jesus of Nazareth,” Rabbi Bernis provides further proof Jesus is Messiah.
5) Show
that you really care – All of us whether Jew of Gentile have struggles in our
lives. In fact, much of the religious
persecution and oppression in our world targets both Jews and Christians. We therefore must show anyone, Jew or Gentile
that we care about them. However, with
Jewish people we have a common struggle with religious oppression. We must therefore let them know how much we
as a Christian relate to their persecution and oppression and care for them in
spite of what flawed Christians have done to them in the past. Jesus came and demonstrated his love by
ministering to those in need. We must
let our Jewish friends know that we also are approaching them in love with the
desire of introducing them to Yeshua, their Messiah.
6) Believe
for Miracles – Jesus performed many miracles during His ministry. In fact in the Gospel of John we are told
that there were many more miracles performed than are not contained in the
Gospels (John 21:25). Jesus is still in
the miracle working business so we must believe He can get through all the
obstacles in the way and reach the hearts of our Jewish friends.
7) Pray
– There is power in prayer, a fact to which all of us who are believers can
attest. However, we tend to become
impatient wanting God to answer our prayers now. This is why we must continually pray for our
Jewish and Gentile friends who do not know Yeshua as their Messiah knowing that
in His perfect timing, God will answer our prayers.
Jesus came for all humanity, Jew and Gentile. Unfortunately, however, 2000 years of
erroneous teaching have taught Jewish people that Jesus is the God of
Christians and not Jews. There have also
been atrocities committed against the Jewish people by people professing to be
Christians that have created obstacles to acceptance of the Gospel. However, using the Tanakh, the Hebrew
Scriptures, it is possible to show them that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah.
Next Saturday we will look at how blessing the Jewish people
brings blessing and cursing them brings a curse.
No comments:
Post a Comment