We desire appreciation for our retention of the Jewish roots of our Christianity and the ways God used us, as a people, in working out man’s salvation.
Not long ago a girl came to us from a very troubled Jewish home. She had accepted Christ, had joined a Pentecostal church, hut was still very confused about her Jewish identity. We discovered, too, that she was diagnosed an incurable schizophrenic. She had undergone the voltage of shock treatments during ten years of intermittent hospitalization. She had lived in hospitals and was on such a high level of medication, her psychiatrist warned she would never be cured.
Her experience was amazing. We invited her into our congregation, which at that time was in Chicago, and the community reached out to her with open hearts and hands. We listened to her, prayed for her deliverance from satanic oppression. We prayed for her parents, who, when she had a relapse, blamed us for making her illness worse. The psychiatrist, however, convinced them to let her continue in the therapy she was receiving through fellowship with loving Jewish believers. It took time, but eventually she greeted the love and listening with noticeable health. When she was nearly free of all medication, she left for a year’s study at Moody Bible Institute, and was completely restored to her parents.
This true story, one of many in which our congregation has played a part, might have been just another page in the diary of some well-known, mainstream denominational church, whose fruits are known by traditions of soul winning and legacies of people healed of their hurts by faith in Christ and Christian discipleship. Instead, this page is from the diary of a modern messianic congregation—something many evangelicals might label “a bewildering territory.”
Messianic Jews understand this bewilderment. In many ways our recent history has contributed to it; we freely admit to our mistakes. In the past, we have conveyed a sense of superiority to other Christians. We have called ourselves rabbis without qualifying the term and responding adequately to the New Testament’s in junction against the title. We have even spoken as if we were just another branch of Judaism, neglecting to affirm our part in the universal body of believers. Let us seal these mistakes up in the dark dungeon of the past.
What modern Messianic Jews find difficult to understand is evangelicalism’s failure to appreciate our evangelicalism or, in the light of the history of the earliest churches as recorded in the Book of Acts, our deep loyalty to Jewishness (cf. Acts 21; 28:17).
To be sure, though our basic confession is in conformity with mainstream evangelical Protestant denominations, we maintain certain aspects of Jewish culture in our worship of the Messiah. Our congregations, for instance, do not reflect the usual evangelical symbolism. You will not see giant crosses protruding above a baptistry, nor will you see walls of stained glass pictures of Christ and his disciples. You will rather see a candle, symbolizing the eternal light of God, just above the ark containing the Torah. To the Messianic Jew, the inclusion and placement of the Torah (the body of Jewish scriptures) in no way symbolizes bondage to the law; it is actually an expression of Jewish affinity to the laws of God, but against the backdrop of God’s gracious favor in forgiving us through the Messiah’s atonement.
You will also find a departure from the traditional nineteenth-century hymns in favor of Scripture songs taken verbatim from Old and New Testaments. The songs are often chanted; many move rhythmically with fast-paced staccato character; some flow smoothly in slightly somber minor keys. Scripture reading, prayer, and Jewish elements such as the Kiddush—a blessing and prayer over wine—interspersed with the singing, provide the structure from which spontaneous praise and worship come. This traditional Jewish worship material coalesces in harmony and unity of spirit to point to the centrality of salvation in Jesus.
In affirming the basic evangelical concepts of the authority of Scripture, salvation by grace through faith, the triune nature of God, the resurrection of Jesus, the Second Coming, and so on, we further incorporate our Jewish biblical heritage into our expression of faith. In affirming the triune nature of God, for instance, we are at pains to draw attention to God the Father in special ways. I once conducted a small survey as I listened to a Christian radio station. For every single instance God the Father was mentioned—in praise, adoration, or just conversation—Jesus was mentioned nine times. Yet when I searched the New Testament, I found that God was prominently mentioned as many times as Jesus. The Father was most often addressed in prayer and glorified through what he had done through his Son, and Jesus was considered the mediator as prayer was given in his name. Consequently, when Messianic Jews pray, sing, and worship, we frequently address the Father in an effort to establish a perspective toward the Trinity that is consistent with our heritage and with Scripture. In our worship we are theo-centric rather than Jesuscentric. We do not, of course, leave Jesus out of our worship; we try to maintain balance between the Father and the Son in our verbal addresses to God.
Another aspect of our Jewishness is our celebration of the Second Coming of Christ. We tie our hope to the orthodox Jewish hope that a personal Messiah is indeed coming. Our distinctive, of course, is that Messiah is coming—again; but the dynamics of the celebration remain basically Jewish. Also, concerning the authority of Scripture, the validity of our faith is sometimes questioned because we do not blatantly reject rabbinical teaching. The traditional Jewish community is under rabbinic authority almost the way a Catholic is under the authority of the Catholic church. Although Messianic Jews may learn certain things from rabbinical sources, the Bible is our final arbiter and all other teaching is measured according to how it aligns with Scripture.
Perhaps the affinity we feel so deeply for our biblical heritage is best seen in our celebrations of (1) the Passover, as the Exodus from Egypt as well as the death and resurrection of Christ; and (2) the Sabbath, as the memorial of Creation and the day of rest that is uniquely Jewish. Each activity, each observance, is carried out with the utmost sincerity, with hearts bursting in appreciation for our own heritage and destiny as a people.
During the Passover celebration we meet together in homes. We walk once again onto the pages of the Exodus and remind ourselves that it was the hand of God that delivered us from the mud and chains of bondage and made us a free people. The elements we eat further bring this to life: the apple mixed with cinnamon and wine reminds us of the color of mortar used in making bricks; the bitter herbs, usually horseradish, remind us of the bitterness of slavery; the parsley dipped in salt water reminds us first of tears, then of new life. Then we prepare for the Messiah’s supper, and bread is broken and later eaten in remembrance of the Messiah’s broken body. Finally, the cup symbolizing his sacrificial blood is consumed.
Our observance of the Sabbath is of a similar character as we share a meal together and conduct a service whose emphasis is to divide the Sabbath from the rest of the week, committing the entire day to the Lord. Spices that remind us of the sweetness of the Sabbath rest are passed around as we sing songs of praise. At the end we extinguish a candle in wine. We feel a certain sadness in the day’s ending, but joy that a new week is beginning.
What is the value of holding steadfastly to cultural practices that wind tortuously back through the centuries? It is first in relating culturally to our own people that we might win them to Jesus. Paul’s words ring in our ears with authenticity: “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win the Jews.”
To “become as a Jew” means to us continuing to value and take part in activities such as the bar mitzvah. This is a time of serious instruction for the child entering sexual maturity, a moment when he or she can contemplate responsibility before God in entering adulthood. In messianic congregations, the young person is taught what it means to be a follower of Jesus. If the youth does not understand the seriousness of this, we caution him to not go through the ceremony.
We have found the bar mitzvah to be a ministry to families of Jewish young people going through the ceremony. Recently, the son of one of our church elders went through his bar mitzvah. This elder had been branded the family black sheep for his acceptance of Jesus, and he doubted the family would even attend the ceremony; they seriously mistrusted his new-found faith values. At the last minute they did attend and were softened by the warmth and fellowship of the congregation. Later, as the family prepared to leave, the old Jewish grandfather said, “I thought you had forsaken your Jewish heritage in accepting Jesus as the Messiah. I never thought it was possible to accept Jesus and to be Jewish. You have proved otherwise. You are more Jewish than the rest of your family.” There was a great deal of rejoicing. We have since continued to share the Messiah with this family and are praying for their salvation.
It is a rock of truth that non-Jewish believers can witness to traditional Jews without success—until they are blue in the face. Perhaps this is what prompted the School of World Missions at Fuller Theological Seminary to state: “We heartily encourage Jewish believers to retain their Jewish heritage, culture, religious practices and marriage customs within the context of sound biblical theology, expressing Old and New Testament truth. Their freedom in Christ to do this cannot but enrich the church in our day.” Just weeks ago a middle-aged Jewish woman came to us on the invitation of one of our members. She had been witnessed to for five months in a weekly, non-Jewish Bible study. She told her friends at the study, “This is very nice; I appreciate what you’re doing.” But because there was no Jewish significance in what they were doing, she left the group without accepting Jesus. When she saw the vibrant fellowship among our people, along with our reverence for Jewish things, she gave her life to the Lord in less than two hours.
As Jews, therefore, we Messianic Jews discover that we are better able to lead Jews to an acceptance of Jesus as Messiah and as Lord and Savior. Nevertheless, our Jewishness is by no means an evangelistic gimmick. We choose to remain Jews because we love the Jewish people and wish to identify with them. Indeed, we find our own identity not just as Christians, but also as Jews and, therefore, most fully as Christian Jews. Our own Jewishness thus leads us to a heartfelt identification with all the elements of history and personality that have produced the Jewish people. One has to be Jewish to relate in total compassion to the hearts of people who have been through the Holocaust. The love of the Messiah does not lessen our Jewishness. Rather, it actually strengthens it and deepens our love for our people and the cultural heritage which has contributed to our Jewish identity in this world.
Are we a legitimate part of the body of Christ in the practical eyes of evangelical believers?
Our congregations are growing significantly. We are seeing many come to New Testament faith in Jesus. Our people are being discipled in the Scriptures. When someone invites Christ into his life, the new believer is immediately taken in hand by a member who spends time each week with him in Bible study, prayer, witnessing, and just doing things together in the development of a biblical lifestyle. We practice water baptism, which we call Mikvah. In one 13-month period we saw 53 people baptized.
We have Gentile believers in our congregation, and all non-Jewish members are treated on an equal basis with Jews. We continue to invite non-Jews into our fellowship as well. We encourage our people to visit other local churches and to take part in weekly fellowship groups with other believers and pastors. We do this with regularity, as our main fellowship takes place on Saturday.
Finally, although we believe in our calling to maintain our identity as Jews, we do not see our identity as having anything to do with our salvation, which is solely by grace. And we do not expect Jewish conformity from the Christian church at large, although we desire a measure of understanding and appreciation for our Jewish roots of Christianity.
In his album Saved, Jewish believer Bob Dylan cries out, “There’s only one road, and it leads to Calvary.” Messianic Jews know the terrain of that road, its lumps, its bends, its detours. We have made our mistakes; what we need most now is the encouragement and prayerful support of the entire Christian community. In your prayers, consider especially these areas of need for Messianic Jews:
1. Capable leaders and church planters. We have new congregations that do not have any idea of congregational life, discipline, and polity. We are not like Presbyterian or Methodist churches with handy books of procedure in our pockets.
2. Biblical education materials that are sensitive to the Jewish culture. We hope eventually to write our own, or to see a curriculum publisher restructure materials to suit our needs.
3. Continued understanding by traditional Jews and Jewish leaders. We are sometimes accused of adulterating traditional Jewish practices by adhering to them in the context of our Christian faith. When we drink the cup symbolizing Messiah’s blood, for instance, we are said to make the cup mean something it was never intended to mean. Pray that we will learn to cope with such tensions—there are many for a Jew who has committed his life to the Lord.
Sometimes we are accused of deception—of pretending to be Jews only to win unsuspecting Jews to Christianity. To this we can only reply that we too think this would be despicable. We call ourselves Messianic Jews because we are Jews, we treasure our Jewishness, and we wish to remain Jews. We are also Christians and we treasure our New Testament faith. Whatever may be said of Christianity as developed in Christendom through the centuries, we find nothing in the New Testament that conflicts with our Jewishness—only that which strengthens and reinforces our Jewish identity and our love for Jews and our Jewish heritage.
There was a young man who accepted Jesus, whose father made him move out of the house because he thought he had thrown off his Jewish heritage by becoming a Christian. The father would have nothing to do with our congregation; he wouldn’t even talk to us. The young man was absolutely torn between his family and our community. Finally, the father told his son, “If you want to please me, you’re going to have to go to Israel to study” under a specific program to convince people to desert their Messianic beliefs. To maintain the dialogue with his father, the son went to Israel to study under this system, which absolutely downplays the New Testament.
The son has retained his faith. Yet, in pleasing his father, he is torn by the forces seeking to pull him away from that faith in Messiah. This is an example of extreme tension. However, we can say with joy that most families have eventually become reconciled to the Messianic faith of their members due to their Jewish fidelity. In some cases Messianic Judaism has been the means of reuniting torn families. May this be the case in the future.
