Messianic Judaism

[Lulav]

I don't think you will find us on here. We are located in Springfield, MO and are new. The forums won't let me post a link but if you google messianic voice springfield mo you will find us.

Thanks, I found it, your Rabbi's ministry sounds like an interesting one, good to hear he is feeling healthy enough to start a third congregation!

 

[ContraMundum]

I'm sorry you feel that way.
When I first turned to Christianity, when I was 18 years old, I was of the hippie generation. I was bathed, clean clothes but a street person. My friend and I were turned out of over 1/2 dozen churches because we didn't look like the rest of the congregation. We were getting frantic over who was going to baptize us. We had read that we all were ambassadors for Christ so we figured if we were that then we could baptize each other, which we promptly did so we could be obedient.
Once I gave up the hippie life and became a "normal" person and was all at once "liked" by the churches I never felt a need to re-do my baptism. I felt very secure in what my friend and I had done in a pinch.
Then I backslid. I was left alone with a 2 year old and got my eyes off God and on how I was gonna survive.
After years of being away from the word, I returned and found Messianic Judaism. The "baptism" at that time was more of a change in life style mikveh, a turning back to God. It was not a baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
To this day, I have never felt a need to re-do my original baptism. It was done in good faith, for the right reason and with the right attitude. It took, and it kept me safe from straying so far away that I'd be lost forever.
Sometimes unconventionality is the mode to get things done.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Sounds fair enough to me.

 

[Heber]

Goodness me, I've just woken up and you guys have added so many pages to this thread! I asked about the conversion process to the Messianic Movement because conversion means, quite literally, giving up everything of one faith and taking up a totally new faith.

I fail to see how, therefore, one can convert from Christianity to Messianic Judaism / Gentilism! What you are saying is that I have given up G_d and Yeshua, had a bathe in a pool and taken G_d and Yeshua into my life again.

Forgive me, but that is just stupid! What is the point? Baptism, as has been pointed out, can only be in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the Scripture says in a few places (John's baptism of repentance was not enough).

Yedida - I was thrown out of the UK Methodist Church at 11 and didn't go back to Church for 10 years! My crime: my brother and I had been out playing and had dirty shoes on! That happened in the Church and we cannot deny it, but the Church, on the whole, is very different now if people shop around. Let's not hang it for offences of the past.

 

[yedida]

Goodness me, I've just woken up and you guys have added so many pages to this thread! I asked about the conversion process to the Messianic Movement because conversion means, quite literally, giving up everything of one faith and taking up a totally new faith.

I fail to see how, therefore, one can convert from Christianity to Messianic Judaism / Gentilism! What you are saying is that I have given up G_d and Yeshua, had a bathe in a pool and taken G_d and Yeshua into my life again.

Forgive me, but that is just stupid! What is the point? Baptism, as has been pointed out, can only be in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, as the Scripture says in a few places (John's baptism of repentance was not enough).

Yedida - I was thrown out of the UK Methodist Church at 11 and didn't go back to Church for 10 years! My crime: my brother and I had been out playing and had dirty shoes on! That happened in the Church and we cannot deny it, but the Church, on the whole, is very different now if people shop around. Let's not hang it for offences of the past.

Where'd you get that? During my first dance with the Lord, I attended Lutheran for a short time (bucked horns with the Pastor on the virgin birth), Methodist, CoG for years, and lastly an interdenominational congregation for a few years. I did become disenchanted with the lack of answers for about 10 years.
Any offenses I hang on the Church have nothing to do with their fear of people who are different, but what they were teaching, or rather, the lack of what they were teaching.
I answered God's call to come back home in 2004 and in 2005 found out that what I was being called to do was called Messianic Judaism.

 

[Heber]

Where'd you get that? During my first dance with the Lord, I attended Lutheran for a short time (bucked horns with the Pastor on the virgin birth), Methodist, CoG for years, and lastly an interdenominational congregation for a few years. I did become disenchanted with the lack of answers for about 10 years.
Any offenses I hang on the Church have nothing to do with their fear of people who are different, but what they were teaching, or rather, the lack of what they were teaching.
I answered God's call to come back home in 2004 and in 2005 found out that what I was being called to do was called Messianic Judaism.

Yedida, I was referring to this: When I first turned to Christianity, when I was 18 years old, I was of the hippie generation. I was bathed, clean clothes but a street person. My friend and I were turned out of over 1/2 dozen churches because we didn't look like the rest of the congregation. We were getting frantic over who was going to baptize us.

Sorry if I mis-understood your post.

 

[yedida]

Yedida, I was referring to this: When I first turned to Christianity, when I was 18 years old, I was of the hippie generation. I was bathed, clean clothes but a street person. My friend and I were turned out of over 1/2 dozen churches because we didn't look like the rest of the congregation. We were getting frantic over who was going to baptize us.

Sorry if I mis-understood your post.

No problem, no damage done. I just couldn't figure out where you thought I'd turn awaedy from the church way back in the beginning.
Perhaps I should have seen more in the fact that I wasn't welcome back then, as hippies were routinely turned out of restaurants, hotels, clothing shops, apartments, etc. I guess I was so used to it that it never occurred to me that a church should not be among the places a hippie was not welcomed.
I guess maybe i gave a too condensed version of why and how I came to be baptised by just another believer in a swimming pool at 3am one morning!!
The little paperback NT that I had said we were supposed to be baptised and no church was willing to do it - so we did it ourselves. And even though I had a long period where my eyes got off the Lord, I didn't really go rogue, just kind of on the sidelines, I guess. So as far as that baptism was/is concerned, I've never once felt the need to re-do it.
Seriously, the way churches do baptisms nowadays, I think that they should just go ahead after the "...in the name....Holy Ghost"' part just go ahead and add, "you're now on the tithing list of such and such church." They're baptising you into membership of their institution rather than into the Family of the Most High God. I've very happy with my "in the name of" baptism, and later my mikveh of t'shuvah.

 

[Heber]

No problem, no damage done. I just couldn't figure out where you thought I'd turn awaedy from the church way back in the beginning.
Perhaps I should have seen more in the fact that I wasn't welcome back then, as hippies were routinely turned out of restaurants, hotels, clothing shops, apartments, etc. I guess I was so used to it that it never occurred to me that a church should not be among the places a hippie was not welcomed.
I guess maybe i gave a too condensed version of why and how I came to be baptised by just another believer in a swimming pool at 3am one morning!!
The little paperback NT that I had said we were supposed to be baptised and no church was willing to do it - so we did it ourselves. And even though I had a long period where my eyes got off the Lord, I didn't really go rogue, just kind of on the sidelines, I guess. So as far as that baptism was/is concerned, I've never once felt the need to re-do it.
Seriously, the way churches do baptisms nowadays, I think that they should just go ahead after the "...in the name....Holy Ghost"' part just go ahead and add, "you're now on the tithing list of such and such church." They're baptising you into membership of their institution rather than into the Family of the Most High God. I've very happy with my "in the name of" baptism, and later my mikveh of t'shuvah.

I don't agree with Baptism as being the means into membership of a particular Church or Denomination (though I believe that to become a Member you should have been Baptised). For me Baptism is about becoming a part of the world-wide Church that is Yeshua's people. After Baptism you are a part of his body of believers wherever you are in the world - though for many that commitment is actually worked out in the local Church where they were Baptised, by their choice.

I used to love travelling to and from work on the London Underground in the knowledge that every time I saw someone with a cross or other Christian symbol on their jacket/coat/dress, etc (but not as a necklace), that we had something in common - we had never met before and may never meet again, but at that moment we were joined by Yeshua and, if I could, I would speak to them, as one believer to another. Amazing!

 

[yedida]

I don't agree with Baptism as being the means into membership of a particular Church or Denomination (though I believe that to become a Member you should have been Baptised). For me Baptism is about becoming a part of the world-wide Church that is Yeshua's people. After Baptism you are a part of his body of believers wherever you are in the world - though for many that commitment is actually worked out in the local Church where they were Baptised, by their choice.

I used to love travelling to and from work on the London Underground in the knowledge that every time I saw someone with a cross or other Christian symbol on their jacket/coat/dress, etc (but not as a necklace), that we had something in common - we had never met before and may never meet again, but at that moment we were joined by Yeshua and, if I could, I would speak to them, as one believer to another. Amazing!

Sadly, back then and many that I know of now work baptism as both, into body of Yeshua and membership into that particular group of people. Maybe it's just me, but the membership part of that tiny exclusive group kind of takes away from the bigger picture. I went to the different churches because each time I was told that "they" didn't believe certain things I was trying to get answers on and obviously I didn't belong. Maybe I just had numerous bad experiences with the odd ones out, but I got really soured on the membership. It seemed like they were wanting Stepford-like people in their crowd, not seekers.

 

[Heber]

Sadly, back then and many that I know of now work baptism as both, into body of Yeshua and membership into that particular group of people. Maybe it's just me, but the membership part of that tiny exclusive group kind of takes away from the bigger picture. I went to the different churches because each time I was told that "they" didn't believe certain things I was trying to get answers on and obviously I didn't belong. Maybe I just had numerous bad experiences with the odd ones out, but I got really soured on the membership. It seemed like they were wanting Stepford-like people in their crowd, not seekers.

They were probably reacting against what I call 'baptised pagans' that run through our streets - the old and young who, having been baptised as babies, never set foot inside a place of Christian worship yet are usually the first to claim that 'of course I am a Christian - I've been Baptised'! Must be more of them than there are of real Christians!!!

I hate this because, as a minister, I am asked to Baptise a child and just know that it is being done because grandma says it must, even though grandma nevers goes to Church, herself. Or it is claimed that unless little Jimmy is Baptised he will go to hell, not be able to get married in a Church, not be able to buried etc etc etc. And you just know that, in spite of their 'firm' promises, they will not do what they have promised. Makes me feel awful because, although I do decline to Baptise a number of babies/children, I am being used to try and allow them to making binding promises, not to me, but to G_d - promises they know they will not keep, and have no intention of keeping, either. Baptism for many is just a sort of celestial insurance policy!

I expect CM has many similar experiences and views!

 

[yedida]

I don't know your end of it and I'm very happy cos I do have a problem saying no, even when "no!" is the absolute proper answer. (I'm much better at it now with age and a smidgeon of wisdom.)
Here in the states, the worst of them, notwithstanding the RCC and orthodox, is all the different baptist groups. Back when I was seeking baptism, that view seemed to be more widespread than it is now. (I don't think there were that many nondenoms at the time?)

 

[MessianicMommy]

Yep. Long and short - yep. It was that way even with non-denoms in my experience.

 

[visionary]

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Thanks for the heads up.

 

[visionary]

Sadly, back then and many that I know of now work baptism as both, into body of Yeshua and membership into that particular group of people. Maybe it's just me, but the membership part of that tiny exclusive group kind of takes away from the bigger picture. I went to the different churches because each time I was told that "they" didn't believe certain things I was trying to get answers on and obviously I didn't belong. Maybe I just had numerous bad experiences with the odd ones out, but I got really soured on the membership. It seemed like they were wanting Stepford-like people in their crowd, not seekers.

I agree. and I no longer seek to be a member, like the fellowship but will not give up my understanding blindly trusting.. the scholars to be true sheperds.

 

[Desert Rose]

It's the living there that somehow tinges the romance.....

yeap ! and its nice when one lives on cash earned/IRA-ed/etc. made in States, thus having it in at least, relative, abundance. If one tried to finance a living on local means/opportunities, it gets much harder

 

[yonah_mishael]

I agree. and I no longer seek to be a member, like the fellowship but will not give up my understanding blindly trusting.. the scholars to be true sheperds.

There are always divergent scholarly opinions. You have to look at the scholars' arguments and decide what agrees with your own experience and what you've read on the subject. If you've read nothing scholarly, however, you can't truly be a judge of what a scholar is saying, since you aren't aware of the consensus or even the fringe issues.

 

[yonah_mishael]

yeap ! and its nice when one lives on cash earned/IRA-ed/etc. made in States, thus having it in at least, relative, abundance. If one tried to finance a living on local means/opportunities, it gets much harder

Yeah, living here without reserves of cash makes one nearly hopeless.

 

[Desert Rose]

I have to agree. ...........
I just hope and pray that all this religious ritual/laws stuff does not take control of the MJ denominations like it did with many other forms of Christianity. It's really up to this generation of MJs to make a change.

so well put, CM. Humans like to fall in love with things that make them feel good, in religion, entertainment, politics, or private life. If the jewish stripe (currently so much in-style) fits the bill, its probably fine, as long as the medicine doenst turn into poison by being consumed in accessive amounts and substitited for spirituality and faith


I dont get MJ and some christians Isra-idolising trend at all! puzzles me beyond belief. Sweet Lord! There are many jews and jewesses who would glady trade the authentic multigenerational jewishness +teudat zehut + a package of freshy-fresh bukeras as a bonus, for an american passport in an instant. Not ony secular, but religous ones, too

 

[visionary]

There are always divergent scholarly opinions. You have to look at the scholars' arguments and decide what agrees with your own experience and what you've read on the subject. If you've read nothing scholarly, however, you can't truly be a judge of what a scholar is saying, since you aren't aware of the consensus or even the fringe issues.

I am free to study it all. Pray the Lord's leading and understanding. Open to change. Not boxed in by "ohh... it belongs to that religious institution" "ewwww' without serious considering the logic... but above all put it on the altar and see which the Lord likes.. it may be a phrase, a way of explaining in part, but it is one of the Lord's gems... God will put the whole puzzle together.. probably about the time that the mystery of God is finished.

 

[Desert Rose]

..............Sometimes unconventionality is the mode to get things done.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

That is soo incredibly cool. You have such a great, interesting past, yedida. What a wonderful, exiting memory of one's baptism! I envy you, in a good sense.


Heber, i hear you brother, but strict adherence to chruch tradition, "proper" way adult baptism doesnt aways produce a truly devoted christian, either...


Someone mentioned naked , selfimmersion baptism -wow, really ,am I out of the loop! Yardenit is turned into a nice business, ugly white gowns were 25$ a piece even back a few years, now might be more. Naked bapt, if takes, wil put a dent into it...

 

[Heber]

That is soo incredibly cool. You have such a great, interesting past, yedida. What a wonderful, exiting memory of one's baptism! I envy you, in a good sense.


Heber, i hear you brother, but strict adherence to chruch tradition, "proper" way adult baptism doesnt aways produce a truly devoted christian, either...


Someone mentioned naked , selfimmersion baptism -wow, really ,am I out of the loop! Yardenit is turned into a nice business, ugly white gowns were 25$ a piece even back a few years, now might be more. Naked bapt, if takes, wil put a dent into it...

I was baptised in the Yarden, many years ago. As I came up out of the water I saw a group of Italians, all singing: Majesty, worship his Majesty.... I was not naked, thankfully! It was a very moving experience; the Church was not impressed as one is not meant to be Baptised more than once, they say!

I agree that full immersion doesn't always turn out good Christians, but for every one Baptised by immersion there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of Baptised pagans!

Baptism should be used sparingly - on those who 'confess with their lips and believe in their heart that Yeshua is Lord'

BTW you do not know me well, it seems - I do not go by tradition. The Bible sets out that Baptism can only be in the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. How it is administered is, in my opinion, open to further debate.