One dictionary defines Common Knowledge as “something widely
or generally known”. The same dictionary
sites as examples “It is common knowledge among those familiar with the rabbinic
tradition that Haman was considered a descendant of the Amalekites. ... Yet it
was common knowledge that Mrs. Bush was a “moderating”
influence on her husband.
I’m pretty confident in the veracity of the first
example. As far as Mrs. Bush having a
“moderating” influence on President Bush is concerned, I would still hold that
only Mr. Bush, Mrs. Bush, all the “little” Bush’s and God know that for sure.
The point that I’m trying to make is that not all “common
knowledge” is necessarily true. In some
cases, I would prefer to call some such assertions as “common assumptions” and
when it comes to assumptions, there’s a well-known cliché that (please pardon
my language) when one “assumes” something, it “makes an ass out of you and me’.
When my family and I were moving into a house in a new
location, I turned on what my father used to affectionately call ‘the idiot
box’ just in time to catch a well-known comedian ending a quip with the words…
“that’s about as likely as a Jew believing in Jesus”. It was apparent, at least to this comedian,
that it was common knowledge that Jews don’t believe in Jesus.
Having followed the rhetoric of this particular comedian
for the past 30 years, however, and corroborating her statement with my own
in-depth knowledge on the subject, I confidently assert that her statement was
not one of common knowledge but was, in fact, a common assumption. And dare I say that, true to form, this
assumption, makes an ass out of everyone.
‘Membership’ in the “Church” is perceived as limited to non-Jews. Faith in Jesus is perceived by the public as
‘just another religion’ along with Judaism and Islam. And the world, as a whole, has a tainted
understanding of what Christianity and its origins are.
Welcome to my one pet peeve! I weary myself standing on this soap box from
which I am unable to extricate myself.
I’m sure that I alienate myself from much of Christendom let alone my
Jewish brethren with my rantings.
However, it is through that grid that I view all ‘Christian’ literature
and rhetoric.
I suppose “Christian” is not necessarily a bad term
although there are a lot of people who call themselves “Christians” who are
not. I do believe that much of this
misunderstanding is the fault of the Church, but that’s a matter of discussion
for another day.
The contemporary use of the
term “Christian”, in my humble opinion, is an unfortunate one. As some might be aware, that epithet wasn’t
used until Acts 11:26, and was given to the followers of Jesus by
non-believers… outsiders as it were.
Many within the “Church” however, have adopted it for themselves as a convenient
moniker. This self-identification,
though, has yielded a perception that belief and, dare I say, trust in Jesus is
just another religion like Judaism or Islam or Buddhism, etc. On the contrary, genuine belief in Jesus
manifests itself as a personal relationship with the eternal living God of
creation and this relationship transcends ethnicity. In fact, it ought to unite people of various
ethnicities… not by piling everyone into one amalgam called “Christian” but by
celebrating the diversity that the God of the Bible has naturally created and
by which “peoples of every tongue and nation” will come and worship the King of
kings and Lord of lords.
Sadly, when one studies the
history of Christianity, by the time of the second century, it’s appearance had
deviated drastically from its original setting.
The first century Church, up until the time Peter met with the Roman
Centurion, Cornelius, in Acts chapter 10, was exclusively Jewish. There wasn’t a Gentile in the lot. Even well after Acts 11, the Apostle Paul
does not shrug off his identity as a Jew. In 2 Corinthians 11 Paul says…
Are they
Hebrews? So am I. Are they
Israelites? So am I. Are they
Abraham’s descendants? So am I. Are they
servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more.
2 Cor 11:22-23
A little further on, in describing the trials that he’d
been through, Paul writes…
I have been constantly on the move. I have been
in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from
Gentiles; in danger in the city, in
danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false believers.
2 Cor 11:26
Note… he doesn’t call them
“those” Jews but “my fellow Jews”
.
In spite of the persecution
that he’d endured from his “fellow Jews” (and please don’t neglect his use of
the term “gentiles” in the above passage as equal participants in his
maltreatment), he’s not bitter towards them.
In fact, in Romans 9, he writes…
I speak the
truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it through the Holy Spirit— I have
great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for
the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the
divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple
worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from
them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God
over all, forever praised! Amen.
Romans 9:1-5
Paul never stopped identifying himself
as a Jew and he never stopped loving the very people that hated and persecuted
him. He loved them even to the point of
being willing to relinquish his own salvation if that meant that they might
receive salvation in return.
The Jewish people were intended to be
the ones who would bring the truth of God to the rest of the world. When God gave the land to the descendants of
Jacob who was later called Israel, it was with the intent that they would be a
light to the nations. The land given to
the Children of Israel, over which they were to rule, was at the cross roads of
all the trade routes of the known world.
They were to be a “peculiar people”… a special prized possession which
is an inadequate definition of the Hebrew word “segula”. As traders would pass through the territory
of Judah, they would go back and tell their families and friends of this
marvelous civilization with a constitution (known as the Torah) that was upheld
because its people had a deep and profound respect for an invisible God whose
forgiveness was symbolized by seven drops of a lambs blood on an altar that no
one except one person was privileged to see and that, only once a year (Lev. 16…
a pre-incarnate picture of the Messiah).
Israel was to be the vehicle that God would use to reveal Himself to all
the peoples of the world. In this
regard, Israel did have somewhat of an impact on the nations. The Queen of Sheba traveled a vast distance
to meet with the king of this marvelous nation, who’s wisdom and wealth
exceeded anything known up until that time.
The only problem with the nation was that it was God Himself who
intended to be the king over this people.
They chose a human king instead.
And so the Jews failed in that respect.
Nevertheless, the Jews did succeed in a
more important respect. They were the
metaphorical “woman” in Revelation 12 who gave birth to a Son. And the name of that Son is Jesus. He was to be a “light of revelation to the
Gentiles and a glory to His people, Israel” (Luke 2:32).
But it is assumed by many that the role
of the Jew is now over. They are a
vestige of the past. As far as I’m
concerned, the church that takes this view does not really consider the Jew as
a mere “vestige” as much as I would more graphically call it, a “placenta”. Now that the Messiah has come into the world,
God doesn’t need the “placenta” any more.
It can just be discarded now like all placentas. The trouble is that in God’s eyes this is no
placenta. In spite of their unbelief the
Jewish people are still a segula… a ‘prized possession”, and holy. Paul writes…
I am talking to you
Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I take pride in my ministry in the hope that I may
somehow arouse my own people (the Jews) to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection
brought reconciliation to the world, what will their acceptance be but life
from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the
root is holy, so are the branches.
13-16:Rom. 11
Of course, Paul doesn’t use
the metaphor of a placenta when he talks about Israel and the church in Romans
11, but he just might as well when he warns the Gentile believers in Rome not
to boast against the natural branches (vs. 18) of the Olive Tree which Paul, in
a more tasteful fashion than I, prefers to use as a metaphor. He reminds the Gentile believer that “He who
grafted you, as a wild branch, into the Olive Tree which is the kingdom of God,
can just as easily prune you out (vs. 21).
As I mentioned before, the
word “Christian” is an unfortunate term.
It connotes the notion that in spite of Paul’s own protestations, he is
a Christian and not a Jew. I’ve seen
Christian history text books referring to the first believers in Jerusalem as
Christians and not Jews. I’ve heard
sermons galore speaking of the disciples of Jesus as Christians and not Jews
while Caiphas, and the Jewish hierarchy were the Jews.
The fact that a majority of
the Jews during the time of the Gospel did not believe in Jesus, eclipses the
reality that it was Jews who first brought the Gospel to the Gentile world to
the average Christian mind. One of my
neighbors actually took offense when I told him that the Gospel of Mark was
written by a Jew. Furthermore, good
churchgoer as he is, he refused to believe me.
Rightfully do Christians
take the great commission as outlined in Matthew 28 as a call to “preach the
Gospel to all the Nations”. But the
context in which that assignment was given must not be overlooked. In context, Jesus, the God-Man (who happened
to be a Jewish man) was telling his disciples, a small band of Jewish men, to
declare among the goyim (the Gentiles… the various non-Jewish ethnicities),
that the Messiah had come, that He was
both fully God and fully man, that He lived a thoroughly righteous life, that He was murdered unjustly on an execution
stake but was raised from the dead and sits at the right hand of God the Father
to make intercession for anyone who will put their trust in Him. Having
conquered death, this God-Man promises eternal life to whosoever will commit
himself to walk in newness of life through the enablement of the Holy Spirit.
Yes, the Jewish nation, as a
whole, did not come to faith in Christ, but those who heard the “great
commission” and watched the Messiah literally ascend into the clouds did not
shirk their responsibility to obey that great commission. Paul, we know, ‘though not present at the
Mount of Olives from where Jesus ascended, nevertheless knew that his role as a
Jew demanded of him that he take the Gospel to the Gentiles. All the others were martyred preaching the
Gospel. Archeological findings have
confirmed that Thomas carried the Gospel to India. And it is interesting to note that synagogues
erected after the Babylonian diaspora 450 years earlier served as bases for
evangelism in the early days of the spreading of the Gospel not just along the
sojourns of Paul as was recorded in the Book of Acts but for Thomas and the
others who took the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
Ever since the time of the
Great Commission, Jews have been taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth.
Below is a brief list of Jewish Christians other than Jesus and His immediate
disciples who’ve been involved in evangelizing the uttermost parts of the earth. Note: These are not all merely contemporary individuals
Richard
Wurmbrand – 1910 - 1991 Founder of Voice of the Martyrs, an organization which
has offices in over 30 countries and is involved in the helping of Christians
undergoing persecution in as many as 80 nations.
Jay
Sekulow – 1956 – Present - Chief counsel for the American Center for Law and
Justice (ACLJ) a team which not only litigates on behalf of Christian causes in
the United States, but which litigates on behalf of persecuted Christians
throughout the world, including victims of Sharia law.
Joseph
Wolf - 1795-1862 Became a pioneer missionary to the Jews of Persia Turkistan
and Arabia
Alfonzo
de Zalmora – Baptized in 1506 – The chief Hebraist in the translation of the
first polyglot Bible which was financed by Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de
Cisneros to “revive the languishing study of the ancient scriptures”.
Samuel
Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky 1831-1906 An orthodox Jew from Lithuania, founded
the first Protestant University in China.
Translated the Bible into Mandarin Chinese and then into Wenli (one
dialect of Chinese). In spite of a debilitating onset of Parkinson’s disease,
he completed the Wenli Bible typing one character at a time with his index
finger.
A
still incomplete but, nevertheless, more extensive list of prominent Jewish
Christians can be found here .
World
evangelism has been instigated in the past and present by Jews. Furthermore, world evangelism in the future
cannot and will not be conducted without Jews.
Revelation chapter 7 tells us that during the time of the great
tribulation 144,000 members of the B’nai Yisrael (Sons of Israel) will evangelize
the entire world with a level of effectiveness such as has never been
known. Some have said that these people
comprise of the tribes of Judah, Levi and Benjamin who’d endured the Babylonian
diaspora as well as other tribes not yet accounted for who are known as the “10
lost tribes of Israel”. Some have said
that these evangelists are the “church” which replaced the Jew (a position to
which I strongly disagree and I see to be hard to defend). I have a theory which I’d like to share with
you.
I
speculate that prior to the Assyrian diaspora of the tribes of the northern
kingdom, the more devout among the people from the northern tribes migrated to the
southern kingdom of Judah because the places of sacrifice set up in Samaria and
Dan by Jeraboam, the first king of the north, in order to keep the people in his kingdom were inadequate. Those who migrated southward knew that the
only authentic place for worship was in Jerusalem. Hence, those who were scattered as a result
of the second diaspora… the Babylonian conquest of the southern kingdom, were
from every tribe including those from the north who'd migrated south. That’s why we have Ashkenazi
Jews of today with names like Naftalon or Naftali, or Rubin or Simon or other
names similar to or derived from the names of all the tribes of Israel.
Jewish
people have been scattered throughout the world. I’ve found an Interesting phenomenon. Namely, that their culture tends to be a conglomerate
of Biblical/Synagogue tradition and the culture in which they find
themselves. I’m of the opinion that this
is why the 144,000 evangelists of Revelation 7 will be so effective. They’re already a part of the culture they
will be reaching for the Messiah. They
will not be trying to “fit in” to the culture around them. Concerning the unique nature of those
cultures… they already do fit in. Hence, I believe that part of a missions effort should include seeking out of indiginous Jews.
If
your church does not have a missions program, start one and if it already has
one, DO NOT ignore the Jew.
