Are Christians required to observe the feasts of ancient Israel to properly understand their own faith? Should we all learn to pronounce the name of Jesus in the ancient Hebrew? Is the Christian faith merely a temporary stop-gap (dispensation) in God’s saving purposes, waiting until God’s attention once again shifts to His original holy people, Israel? Or conversely, does what is called Judaism today bear any resemblance whatsoever to the faith of the saints who lived before the incarnation of our Savior?
These are questions that are being asked, amidst no small controversy, in the church today. Anti-semitism is a label that no one wants to have hung around their necks. But does that mean that Christians ought to unquestioningly support whatever policies the modern Israeli government enacts? Wiser and cooler heads must prevail. Jews today, whether practicing some form of Judaism or remaining agnostic, remain in a state of unbelief, as much as Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Mormons. All men who do not bow the knee to King Jesus need to hear the Gospel and place their faith in Him.
We certainly do not want to return to a day in which Jews were singled out as "Christ Killers." The church is rightly shamed by the conduct of some of her members in the past toward that race from whom Christ descended according to the flesh. We, the heirs of the church in this generation, must do better. We need to understand the Jewish faith in order that we might love our Jewish neighbors and lead them to the knowledge of the Messiah of Israel and of the whole earth. The resources below are offered in the hope that all nations, including Israel, might come to embrace the international faith of Jesus.
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