A friend posted this quote
“It is the duty of every minister of Christ to explain the mystery of Israel. It is a part of our holy religion. It belongs to the counsel of God. It is inseparably connected with the truth as it is in Jesus.”
—Adolph Saphir
A person replied ““The duty of every minister is to explain the mystery of Israel”. While certainly Israel had a big part to play, and seems to have a place in eschatology, I can find no Apostolic command for future ministers to emphasize such a thing. The duty of every minister, according to Apostolic doctrine, is to preach Jesus Christ.”
It is important to realize that , that response flows from literally hundreds of years of teaching that tries to create a new category called “church” with a new head called “Christ” and followers called “Christians”. This new thing that was birthed at Pentecost has as its goal, individual salvation. That salvation has Jesus as your helper in this life and an opportunity to connect to other believers in a not too binding way. Mainly you are saved and can look forward to heaven where everything is good.
Jesus/Yeshua is actually the long-awaited, long-prophesied, Messiah King of Israel. Both Mary and John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah emphasize this truth in the early chapters of Luke. Paul always made it a point to go into synagogues when he went into new towns to preach this Messiah King to the Jews who had thousands of years of the Law and the prophets built into their lives. Jesus said to go to the Jew first because they would be best able to tie all this together for the gentiles so that they would have the perspective of all the works that God had been doing through Abraham and His descendants. Paul does make it clear that you don’t have to be Jewish to be saved from the wrath to come by the saving work of Jesus on the cross, all who believe are saved, but Paul never converts from being a Jew who is teaching and displaying this message to the Jews and the gentiles.
Did you notice how all the examples of faith in Hebrews 11 are Jewish believers? Did you notice how “church” is used in Acts 7:38 “This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:”
Messiah’s community would be the very best translation for ekklesia from the Greek. Messiah’s community would keep us connected to our Jewish heritage. As followers of the crucified Messiah we would know that our home is not in this age, we are not to get comfortable here, we live knowing that there is a final reckoning coming for this age, when all the evil, disease, and death will be eliminated. Our lives joined intimately with other disciples of the Lamb, point to a future Kingdom ruled by the Messiah King. Death and the trials of this age do not define or control us, we are free.
The self-sacrificial love within Messiah’s community is a powerful draw to those around us. Ultimately our debt to Israel as gentile followers of the Messiah flows out of us as a willingness to pay whatever cost to see them come to a place where they can see the One whom they have pierced and turn to Him with their whole heart. We are so connected to the heart of the Messiah King that we count it a privilege to be used in any way to reconnect Him to His chosen people.
Isaiah 35:3 “Strengthen the limp hands,
make firm the wobbly knees.
4
Say to those with anxious heart,
“Be strong, have no fear!”
Behold, your God!
Vengeance is coming!
God’s recompense—it is coming!
Then He will save you.
5
Then the eyes of the blind will be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6
Then the lame will leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute will sing.
For water will burst forth in the desert
and streams in the wilderness.
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