What do you think of Messianic Judaism?

You've got new holy days and festivals to observe, no time to bother with the bible's ones?

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From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas;
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we, in dreams, behold the Hebrides.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says (James 1:22)

Yes, and what happens is the converts to this movement, are getting their consciences snared by all the rules, and the sad thing is, they are being directed to the past shadows, so they are running at a loss now, because of the absense of the richness of Pauline thelogy, that they so shun indeed. Distraction!

Then, by their actions, they are doing exactly what caused division in the church, as recorded in Galatians, when Peter held aloof from Gentiles.

"Others" are sinners if they eat pork, and are not as spiritual, because they don't live in the same manner as they do, who try to keep as many of the laws, as they can.

I think there are some good things about it but, overall, I wouldn't recommend it.

When I was a new Christian, it was a very big movement and there was a huge Messianic church in our area. Many of my friends and I, while not MJs ourselves, were sympathetic to the movement and did a lot of things with them.

Mostly, what I found was that it is extremely works based and extremly law based. I think because of that, they miss the point.

I appreciate that Jews who come to Christ feel they want to honor their heritage, but I think they go way too far, as if they want to deny Christianity and practice a Christianized Judaism. Many times, I've tried to explain to them that Christianity never seeks to usurp Judaism, but is the fulfilment of Judaism.

To paraphrase Paul, what is the point of Christ freeing you from the law if you're just going to place yourself back in bondage to the law?

Hi, I meant to also say, as per the red above. It can be argued, that Paul had more trouble, or equal from those Judaizers, out of the Jerusalem church, who professed Christ, than the unbelieving Jews. In other words, Paul fought Messianic Judaism.

And the other thing that I find is this. As far as "Jewish Roots" goes, Gentiles do not become Jewish. In fact, the gospel had it roots in Abraham the Gentile, as per gal 3:8, so really he is our father, and Paul stressed it was before circumcision, in Romans 4.

Well stated. And one thing I forgot to mention is their error in blurring the Old and New Covenants.

Yes! All people have to do is to read Galatians 3. Paul was clear, they were saved by faith, through the Gospel, like children of Abraham, 3:8, not by the Old Covenant, which had a curse, as explaind in 3:10-13. The blessing of Abraham, then Paul said, not the curse for the Old Covenant.

True.

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Question: Is the Torah bondage (as the church teaches), or is it our sin that enslaves us? (Psalm 119:44-45, Romans 6:17-18)

You say return to as though you at one point did those things which obviously you never did.

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Like everything else, Messianic Judaism is a mixed bag. In my experience there are two sides and people range between them in a spectrum.

On one side a lot of messianic folks are basically just evangelical protestants who happen to like Jewish culture or they feel that including something Jewish in their worship brings them closer to the roots of the faith etc. As a result they use some Jewish words and symbols and incorporate aspects of Jewish culture into their worship and traditions.

In reality this group has no real substantive differences from any other protestant group and their theology is pretty much identical to a non-denominational evangelical church.

Some people in this group are Jews who have become evangelical protestant Christians, others are gentiles who enjoy the Jewish accents etc.

The only problem I see with this is that much of the "Jewishness" of this group is purely modern cultural/ethnic Jewishness and it has little to do with biblical Judaism. This in and of itself is not a problem, any more than a group that likes Irish Christianity because they happen to like Irish culture. (like me) It only becomes a problem when these people think that they are some how better off, or more truly following original Christianity because they have a menorah and they say Yeshua, and Yahweh.
Within Judaism there is a lot of spectrum, just like in Christianity and Jews range from non-observant, non-religious all the way through liberal modernized forms of Judaism, to more rigid orthodox Judaism.
In my experience most of the Jews in this type of messianic Christianity were either from non-observant, nominally observant, or reformed, or more liberal Jewish family backgrounds.
Of course there are always exceptions.


On the other side of the spectrum there are groups that for all intents and purposes are orthodox Jews, who happen to believe that Jesus is the messiah.

Again, I don't directly have a problem with someone who wants to follow the traditions of Orthodox Judaism for their own reasons, however, on this side is where you tend to find more of what Paul called "Judiaizing".

The views that many on this side would hold do not, in my opinion, agree with orthodox Christian teaching on the new testament.
I significantly disagree with some of their interpetation of Paul as well as the rest of the New Testament.

While this side tends to be much more authentically "Jewish" and much more faithful in their observance of Judaism, in my opinion they often fail, to recognize that Judaism itself has changed significantly since the time of Jesus and the Apostles. I think to a certain extent they end up relying upon interpetations and traditions that grew up in a climate that was specifically anti-christ.


My purpose was not to offend and I hope I haven't. I've met great people from both camps above and have learned from them as well.

In fact, I actually had my born again experience in a messianic Jewish synagogue in Texas.

As a last comment, one thing I have been interested to discover is that, while most people, would not consider traditional Christianity, like Anglicanism or Catholicism or Lutheranism, to be very "Jewish", when you get under the hood and really begin to understand the whys and wherefors behind the theology and practices of the historic Christian Church, it has a lot stronger and more real ties to ancient Judaism than I ever expected.