Saturday, July 18, 2015

Communicating the Gospel to Jewish People (Part 2)

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.  

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