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St. Paul School of Leadership & Discipleship Lesson 62 Part 5 ST. PAUL SCHOOL OF LEADERSHIP "Be ye followers of me as I also am of Christ." (I Corinthians 11:1) (With Frank Eiklor and Walter Contreras) (Sincere Questions-Scriptural Answers) LESSON 62 Part 5 INTRODUCTION This is our fifth and final lesson regarding questions Christians are asking about Israel, the Jewish people, and biblical prophecy. With the Church under increasing attack by the world and Israel being threatened with nuclear annihilation, the words of the prophets stand out like a great mountain range. No Christian should be ignorant of what God has done, is doing, and will yet do, with His ancient Chosen People and the land and people of Israel. Here are the final four questions and answers. Keep them with the previous four lessons and you will have a great teaching tool that you can use to help inform others. Our next lesson will feature a guest teacher, author Mark Leslie, who will complete our present study on why Christians should love the Jews and Israel and be God's bridge builders of unconditional love. Don't miss it! 17. BUT DIDN'T THE JEWS CRUCIFY CHRIST? The subject of "Who crucified Jesus" is dealt with at length in my book "God, Ghettos, Genocide, Glory." Enough to say here that Jews today are still suffering persecution by being stereotyped as "Christ-killers." Yet one Jew answered, "It was a Gentile who killed Until we Christians recognize that such stereotyping has given the enemies of the Jews ammunition to do their dirty work, we will never be able to demonstrate genuine, unconditional love to the Jews. Who crucified Christ? The Bible says: "The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered together, For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done" (Acts 4:26-28). These scriptures point out that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins and was placed there in the perfect will of God as the Father's love message to the human race. Therefore, all I have to do to answer the question, "Who crucified Christ?" is to go to a mirror and "behold the man." 18. DOES THE NEW TESTAMENT PROMISE FINAL BLESSING? Emphatically so. Romans 11 is one chapter that every anti-Semite would love to remove from the New Testament. For example, in addressing Christians, Paul writes: "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in" (God is giving time for Gentiles to be grafted in to His tree of salvation). "And so all 19. WILL THERE COME A TIME WHEN NATIONS RUN AFTER THE JEWS-NOT TO HURT THEM BUT TO BE BLESSED BY THEM? The same God who guaranteed Ten men will take hold of the skirt of one Jew (not his throat as in the past) and ask to walk with him just for the sense of closeness to God. Micah writes, "And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more" (Micah 4:2, 3). And Zephaniah offers the Jews these promises to look forward to: "Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and praise among all people of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord" (Zephaniah 3:19, 20). God's fame, rather than man's shame, awaits the Jewish future. Jesus is the "difference maker" and He intends to reveal Himself to His ancient people. And when He does-Wow! 20. WHAT HAS CAUSED JEWS TO REMAIN A SEPARATE AND DISTINCT ENTITY FOR 4000 YEARS? Even today Jews constitute less than a half of one percent of the world's population. That's over ninety nine Gentiles to less than one Jew. As always, Jewish people constitute a tiny minority. Why haven't they disappeared through assimilation during the past 4000 years? After all, the Hebrew Scriptures are filled with examples of the Jews breaking their prophets' hearts by breaking God's covenants. They whined to Moses for a return trip to God had declared that He would not allow His chosen people to melt in with the ways of the Gentile world and, though they might break their part of the covenant with God, He would not break covenant with them. MESSIANIC FEVER The first 2000 years of the Jewish story leave one breathless. From patriarch, to promised land, to punishment, to prison in Babylonian captivity, to the promise of a Messiah-the Jews experienced it all. Assyria ruled over the Jews. Assyria disappeared while the Jews survived. Babylon and the Medes and Persians were next. They disappeared while the Jews survived. Next came mighty Rome, whose iron rule would allow no opposition and whose terrible weapons would destroy Jerusalem and finally leave Masada a desolate reminder that the Jews were finished. Of course, that didn't happen. Invincible Rome would rot from within and fall. But during her rule, Jewish messianic fever shattered the thermometer. Prophecies were studied. Prayers ascended to heaven. And suddenly, a powerful Jew with the boldness of a lion came out of the Judean wilderness calling on the nation to "Repent…for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 3:2). The nation was about to be divided again-not by Gentile swords but by Jewish opinion concerning Yeshua-Jesus of Nazareth-whom John heralded as Israel's deliverer. The arguments would rage. Messiah? Or imposter? Accepted by thousands. Rejected by others. But it all happened on Jewish turf, in Jewish context, and through classic in-house Jewish arguments. But no Jew-on either side-could have imagined in their worst nightmares that something as Jewish as the messianic movement centered around Jesus would be turned into a Gentile religion that would soon cut itself off from its Jewish roots and slaughter Jews in the very name of the one who first came as a Jew to the Jews. Today many Christians, ashamed of this terrible past, are standing against anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. We are determined to let Jew and Gentile experience through our actions and words the real Jesus. We invite you to be one of us! Related Articles · More Articles |
