Hoping I can better understand my best friend

[tonyarn]

Can I start a thread where I can come and ask questions as they come up occassonally in conversation with my best friend?

OK, here's a little background. My best friend is a Reform Jew, although she says she is "more observant" than most Reform Jews. She is the only Jewish person (aside from her immediate family members) that I know. We do occassionally enter into conversation about religion, it is rarely heated, however.

I was born and raised Missouri Synod Lutheran (as was her now converted husband), but have been a born again Christian since 1996.

I just sometimes have questions or would like clarification of things in our conversation. I won't lie, of course I would love for her to become "saved," but I try not to push the matter. There have been times when I've just made a simple comment that to me is totally not pushing and she has felt it was, however. I try not to be that way because I know it'll get me nowhere.

OK, first off, let me share a conversation we had actually quite a while back now. She does not believe a person can be both Christian and Jewish at the same time. When asked about about Messianic Jews, she says they are "wanna be Jews." This makes no sense to me. Can you explain?

She takes issue with the taking of tithes and offerings during a church service. Why?

Some of my own questions about the local Jewish meeting place. Why do they hire an off duty police officer to be in the building at all times when Jewish children are present? Is this a common thing among Jewish communities?

Why are Sunday School teachers a paid position and the Sunday School and Hebrew School run such as an actual school might be run with a principal, etc?

 

[tonyarn]

I have many more questions, this is just a start.

 

[Tishri1]

be her best friend and do what a best friend would do, be yourself , be helpful and care about her.... many Jews think Christians just care about their place in eternity(and many dont believe there is a place in eternity so that doesnt even help them much) so cover her with prayer and help her understand with out pushing understanding into her....ABBA will see to it that your seeds are watered and grow in his time and be assured we have the promise of a future harvest

 

[Kris10leigh]

Hello, and welcome! I'm so glad you've come here to ask questions to better be able to understand your friend. I'm afraid I'm not a very good one to answer your questions as my personal beliefs are in direct conflict with yours. I don't understand why your friend needs to be "saved" at all as I believe your friend has already found favor with God through her belief in Judaism.

BUT...that isn't a typical Messianic response.

I simply couldn't let this thread go without me getting that tiny bit in there. From here, I hope you find what you are looking for at that you feel free to ask away.

 

[visionary]

Find a local Messianic congregation, and attend their meetings, there you will meet those who will be able to help you.

Synagogues often get hit by antisemitic violence.. hence the need for police protection.

Education is a way of life for a Jew, and Torah education is at the heart of it. They take it very seriously and teach their children well. They have been doing it for centuries, and that is why you find many brilliant minds coming from this training.

 

[ChavaK]

I'll PM you, if you don't mind, since it seems you are looking for a Jewish answer...

 

[simchat_torah]

When asked about about Messianic Jews, she says they are "wanna be Jews."

This is probably the typical response you'll hear from a Jew. However, a Messianic will clearly and strongly disagree. So you'll get a different answer depending on who you ask, there will not be one clear consistent answer.

She takes issue with the taking of tithes and offerings during a church service. Why?

The Jewish people are hated globally. Antisemitism was not limited to the Nazis. It permeates even American society (which I see you're Missouri Synod). We have been lucky here in America in that the police force have agreed to keep us safe during various times of worship (most particularly during high holy days). The risk of hate crimes statistically run much higher during our high holy days. Muslims, Hicks, and just plain old antisemitic idiots still dangerously threaten our lives even here in the good ole US of A. Sad, but true.

Many Jews, including myself, can describe attacks we have witnessed with our own eyes, I have see *worse* than just death threats... trust me. The cops aren't there for us to look like bullies, they are there to keep us safe. Nothing more.

-Yafet

 

[simchat_torah]

Example:
FBI foils plot to car bomb NYC synagogue, arrests four...
FBI arrest four in alleged plot to bomb Bronx synagogues, shoot down plane

this happens all the time.

 

[johnd]

I'll toss in my two cents beginning with the last questions.

If I could cite the biggest mistake of Gentiles (Christian or pagan) is to underestimate the worth and importance of the Jewish people. To a Jew, to maintain and pass on this import and who they are, is the highest goal. This is why Jewish education and religion are taken quite seriously. Especially with regard to the youth. It is not only who they are but why they are.

To some, I come across as the biggest want-to-be of all. But I understand who we that believe in the Jewish Messiah truly are (though most don't understand or reject it). Regardless... anyone that believes in Yeshua / Jesus is inextricably linked to the Jewish people and owe them a debt we cannot begin to repay.

Jesus paid the sin debt. But the Jewish people have paid the price over the hundreds of centuries for bringing God's truth (both written and personified) into this hostile anti-truth world. And antisemitism rears its ugly head at every half chance... persecuting Jewish people literally from one side of this world to the other. They are begrudged by most to hold a sliver of homeland in the world, having to guard their children from pernicious assaults and killings while the media portrays them as brutal, dictatorial... for daring to try to put a stop to these assaults and killings... making no mention of how the Israelis police their own people and hold responsible those who commit retaliatory atrocities...

...don't get me started.

Suffice it to say, had any other people been treated the way this patient, tolerant people have been treated since the days Abraham was called to part from the Chaldeans, wars like mankind has never seen before would have exterminated all life on planet earth long ago. Even (at times) by the hands of the church these people have known great suffering... ironically, under the banner of their own Messiah. Due in part to the identity crisis of the Church, and Gentile mishandling of her mission to love and for salvation first for the Jew then for the Gentile. This is the result of the series of tares sown in amongst the wheat field (from the time of Moses until Jesus came)... setting into motion the teaching of the corrupted Jewish leadership against the very Messiah they were called apart to usher into this world.

Hasatan the devil infiltrating the church today is of no surprise. Not really. Just start the dogmatic types bickering over their pet doctrines; Baptists and the Pentecostals fighting about water baptism or speaking in tongues... to name two. It stems from not taking God at his word, and reinventing the wheel over and over again and then fighting over the differences in human based inventions. It would all be cleared up if (99% of all) Christians realized that Gentile believers are adopted children into Spirit Judaism. That one identity crisis is what opens the flood gates of the division in the Body Christian.

No the devil's masterpiece of infiltration was getting past the diligent Jewish leaders who meticulously managed / copied the Bible and were ever on the alert for error or interference... It was like planting an evil seed and as it grew it infiltrated to the point that the very leaders which God told the people to follow actually led them astray, away from the very Messiah the Bible foretold.

That's the greatest of all heartbreaks.

Even though God has effectively used their anti-testimony to in fact testify for Yeshua / Jesus... it breaks his heart.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem. He was not indignant. His indignation was reserved for the disciples of those corrupt leaders (who were of the tares sown in the wheat field). He loves the Jewish people. He came to specifically save all Jews and then all Gentiles from sin by giving them an avenue for eternal peace with God (with which no peace on earth could compare).

And the covenants with Jewish people for their existence in this life still stand.

Considering all of this; the persecution and the mishandling of the faith (in the Jewish Messiah) by Gentiles, offering Jews a salvation that bears little resemblance to anything Jewish they are aware of... it's no mystery they are so skeptical... yet another reason for us to return to our Hebraic roots.

But make no mistake Jewish people are God's people of earth (while believers in Yeshua are God's people on earth, our Jerusalem is in heaven).

 

[johnd]

YouTube - fiddler on the roof violin solo
​

 

[Heber]

Great film! Love the music and story line.

 

[Heber]

Hello, and welcome! I'm so glad you've come here to ask questions to better be able to understand your friend. I'm afraid I'm not a very good one to answer your questions as my personal beliefs are in direct conflict with yours. I don't understand why your friend needs to be "saved" at all as I believe your friend has already found favor with God through her belief in Judaism.

BUT...that isn't a typical Messianic response.

I simply couldn't let this thread go without me getting that tiny bit in there. From here, I hope you find what you are looking for at that you feel free to ask away.

I think that is a good Messianic response. By the way, neither can Jews 'convert'! What might they convert from, to, given that conversion (in a religious sense) means giving up one way of religious life for a totally different way of religious life ie to a totally different faith?

 

[johnd]

Poor choice of words, convert, I mean. Gentiles even with the best of intentions do not have a clue how they put off a Jew from even considering Yeshua as the Messiah from all the mishandling and misunderstanding beyond the orthodoxy core... dress up a duck like a hunter and wonder why other ducks avoid that duck like certain death... {sigh} It just makes sense.

 

[visionary]

I agree.. there should be no conversion, but an awakening of realisation of who the Messiah is.. other than that, the faith is the same.

 

[johnd]

Bump...

Polished up Post # 9

 

[visionary]

I'll toss in my two cents beginning with the last questions.

If I could cite the biggest mistake of Gentiles (Christian or pagan) is to underestimate the worth and importance of the Jewish people. To a Jew, to maintain and pass on this import and who they are, is the highest goal. This is why Jewish education and religion are taken quite seriously. Especially with regard to the youth. It is not only who they are but why they are.

To some, I come across as the biggest want-to-be of all. But I understand who we that believe in the Jewish Messiah truly are (though most don't understand or reject it). Regardless... anyone that believes in Yeshua / Jesus is inextricably linked to the Jewish people and owe them a debt we cannot begin to repay.

Jesus paid the sin debt. But the Jewish people have paid the price over the hundreds of centuries for bringing God's truth (both written and personified) into this hostile anti-truth world. And antisemitism rears its ugly head at every half chance... persecuting Jewish people literally from one side of this world to the other. They are begrudged by most to hold a sliver of homeland in the world, having to guard their children from pernicious assaults and killings while the media portrays them as brutal, dictatorial... for daring to try to put a stop to these assaults and killings... making no mention of how the Israelis police their own people and hold responsible those who commit retaliatory atrocities...

...don't get me started.

Suffice it to say, had any other people been treated the way this patient, tolerant people have been treated since the days Abraham was called to part from the Chaldeans, wars like mankind has never seen before would have exterminated all life on planet earth long ago. Even (at times) by the hands of the church these people have known great suffering... ironically, under the banner of their own Messiah. Due in part to the identity crisis of the Church, and Gentile mishandling of her mission to love and for salvation first for the Jew then for the Gentile. This is the result of the series of tares sown in amongst the wheat field (from the time of Moses until Jesus came)... setting into motion the teaching of the corrupted Jewish leadership against the very Messiah they were called apart to usher into this world.

Hasatan the devil infiltrating the church today is of no surprise. Not really. Just start the dogmatic types bickering over their pet doctrines; Baptists and the Pentecostals fighting about water baptism or speaking in tongues... to name two. It stems from not taking God at his word, and reinventing the wheel over and over again and then fighting over the differences in human based inventions. It would all be cleared up if (99% of all) Christians realized that Gentile believers are adopted children into Spirit Judaism. That one identity crisis is what opens the flood gates of the division in the Body Christian.

No the devil's masterpiece of infiltration was getting past the diligent Jewish leaders who meticulously managed / copied the Bible and were ever on the alert for error or interference... It was like planting an evil seed and as it grew it infiltrated to the point that the very leaders which God told the people to follow actually led them astray, away from the very Messiah the Bible foretold.

That's the greatest of all heartbreaks.

Even though God has effectively used their anti-testimony to in fact testify for Yeshua / Jesus... it breaks his heart.

Jesus wept over Jerusalem. He was not indignant. His indignation was reserved for the disciples of those corrupt leaders (who were of the tares sown in the wheat field). He loves the Jewish people. He came to specifically save all Jews and then all Gentiles from sin by giving them an avenue for eternal peace with God (with which no peace on earth could compare).

And the covenants with Jewish people for their existence in this life still stand.

Considering all of this; the persecution and the mishandling of the faith (in the Jewish Messiah) by Gentiles, offering Jews a salvation that bears little resemblance to anything Jewish they are aware of... it's no mystery they are so skeptical... yet another reason for us to return to our Hebraic roots.

But make no mistake Jewish people are God's people of earth (while believers in Yeshua are God's people on earth, our Jerusalem is in heaven).

Worth having repeated...

 

[johnd]

Thank you.