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May 9, 2008
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Home > 2008 > MarchChristianity Today, March, 2008  |   |  
Foolish Things
Why Evangelize the Jews?
God's chosen people need Jesus as much as we do.



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Larry King is not known as a tough interviewer. Yet with smooth-talking pastor and author Joel Osteen, he went for the jugular, asking whether Jews and Muslims must believe in Christ to go to heaven. And Osteen blinked: "I'm very careful about saying who would and wouldn't go to heaven. I don't know."

While Osteen later apologized for seemingly downplaying the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation, the pluralistic pressure to waffle on this issue is intense. Several mainline denominations support a two-covenant theology, which holds that Judaism and Christianity are parallel, divinely guided paths to God. In addition, in 2002 the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released a document, "Reflections on Covenant and Mission," affirming that "Jews already dwell in a saving covenant with God."

Noting that many church leaders and theologians have "retreated from embracing the task of evangelizing Jews," in 1989 a global group of evangelical theologians (including Vernon Grounds, Kenneth Kantzer, J. I. Packer, and Tokunboh Adeyemo) drafted the Willowbank Declaration on the Christian Gospel and the Jewish People. They denied that "any non-Christian faith, as such, will mediate eternal life with God."

Such a statement, attacked when it was released, remains politically incorrect. Voices both inside and outside the church say that evangelizing Jewish people—calling them to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ as their Lord, Savior, and Messiah—is inappropriate. Rabbi David Rosen recently told CT that if someone relates to him "as someone who's going to burn in hell, then I can't really see that as genuine love toward my people and my faith."

I love and respect the Jewish people and their faith. After all, Jesus was a Jew, and Christianity is firmly rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures. Certainly the Holocaust and the church's horrific anti-Semitism have changed the context for evangelism. We have much for which to apologize. But we cannot apologize for the gospel, which is Good News for Jewish people precisely because they—like all human beings—need Jesus. Paul, a Hebrew of Hebrews, said plainly, "What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. for … all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin."

Some believe that Romans, which states emphatically that "all Israel will be saved," teaches that Jews do not need to hear the Good News from us. (Along those lines, Rosen asks evangelicals to "suspend your proselytizing and allow the Almighty to do whatever the Almighty thinks is the thing to do in his own time.") Such interpretations remind me of the apocryphal story of the misguided churchman who condescendingly told budding missionary William Carey, "Young man, sit down; when God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without your aid and mine." If Carey had sat down, the modern missionary movement might have died stillborn.

Ordinarily God uses people to spread his message. Good news is no news at all if it is not communicated. And it must be shared first with the Jews (Rom. 1:16). Their calling as God's covenant people makes our evangelistic obligation to them greater, not less. "The biblical hope for Jewish people," Willowbank says, "centers on their being restored through faith in Christ to their proper place as branches of God's olive tree, from which they are at present broken off."

Some people denigrate the methods and motives of people who evangelize Jews. They claim that focusing ministry on—or "targeting"—Jews is just plain wrong. "Billy Graham didn't target Jews," pastor John Hagee says. "Bill Bright refused to target the Jews. I'm not targeting the Jews."





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Displaying 1 - 3 of 44 comments.See all comments
Lovingkindness   Posted: March 25, 2008 1:24 PM
Any human who thinks they know who is going to heaven is - to say the least - lacking in humility. Jesus stunned and horrified many Jews with his "surprise" Messianism. God, through Moses, stunned the Egyptians by bringing his people out of slavery. To not understand that God is in control is to miss the whole point. And just when we think we know God, God surprises us. That is what Mystery is all about. The road to evangelizing is love, love of God and fellow human being, to paraphrase Jesus. Targeting "Jews" for evangelization immediately makes them "the other." As soon as someone is "other" - a target - that lovingkindness is replaced by ulterior motive. That ulterior motive has resulted in things like blood libels, pogroms and is partly responsible for the Holocaust. Christ chose the Cross out of love, not coersion. Coming out of Easter, if that message isn't clear, something is wrong.

Hannah   Posted: March 25, 2008 4:17 PM
Mr. Guthrie, I suggest you do some serious study of the Bible. Jesus was indeed the "Good News", which is the Torah. Many Christians call him the living Torah, as his life was a model of piety through observance of the Torah. Constantine politicized the message in the fourth century to increase his own power, and this has brought down a pagan faith that has little to do with Jesus' Good News. (Gospel) It is so true that if Jesus did come back today, he would head straight for a synagogue and avoid the pagan church with its pagan holidays. Please do your homework. As for Jesus dying for our sins, the Jewish teaching is that we repent daily. Look into your own heart and deal with your own sins, rather than playing God and judging everyone who disagrees with you.

Paul T. Anderson   Posted: March 31, 2008 3:30 PM
Haven't Christians done enough to the Jews and people of other religious traditions throughout the years? I say just leave them only. I think it is the epitome of arrogance to claim that Christianity is better than Judaism or any other religion. Every person relates to the divine in his or her own way, and as long as they are not harming anyone in the process, Christians should keep a respectful distance. Sixty to seventy percent of so-called Christians don't attend religious services at all. The church ought to be reaching out to these people and not individuals and groups who have already found strength, peace, and well being with their own religious traditions.

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