A thought provoking post…
Jews for Jesus and the Gospel Blimp | Chutzpah, News, and Views.
Category Archives: Messianic Judaism
Messianic Jewish Conversion: Doing it right.
First off, I believe that we need a well-thought conversion program because “Messianic conversions” are already being offered now and most if not all are being done wrong. There are even a few websites that you can fill out an online form and make a donation to the organization and get your conversion certificate in the mail, kind of makes me think of the many diploma and ordination mills, these being conversion mills.
A classic post from the early years of towardblog...
Building A Jewish religious movement for Yeshua
In seeking to be a Judaism, a Jewish religious movement for Yeshua within the Jewish people and for the Jewish people we will ask Jewish questions, seek to give Jewish answers and credibly live out our lives as Messianic Jews as a part of the Jewish community, rather than the missionary model as one who goes into the Jewish community as an outsider to target the “unsaved Jews” for conversion to Christianity. We see the Jewish people as “us” and not “them” and therefore our desire is to live credible Jewish lives that we can make the Messiah seen within Israel as the Messiah followed by Torah honoring, Jewishly connected, Messianic Jews. Our hope is to be a light for Messiah within the Jewish world.
In this identity we embrace our oneness with all of the Jewish people as an act of faithfulness to God and to His Torah and not some act of “seeking man’s approval”. We seek God’s approval by living as he intended as a Torah community that follows the Jewish Messiah.
Yeshua is central to the building of a mature Messianic Judaism, because he is the Messiah that we honor. Our desire is to make him known within the People of Israel and this can only be done by seeing the Jewish community as our community of reference and living within Jewish life embodied in our respect for Jewish tradition and Torah living as we seek to be organically connected within the Jewish community as the Jews who follow Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah.
Yeshua can only be properly seen by the Jewish people as he really is as the Jewish Messiah, by being made known by a credible Messianic Judaism that reflects a love for all Jewish people and with a vital connection to the People of Israel.
May we live lives that make Yeshua known within a Judaism, Messianic Judaism.
On the Web: Six Things I Wish I Knew Before I Went Kosher by Miri
Great new blog post by friend Miri. Seeking to understand what kashrut means is essential to building a mature Messianic Judaism.
Thanks for your contribution to this discussion, Mirela!
Six Things I Wish I Knew Before I Went Kosher | Biblically Kosher | Biblical Eating.
One Mitzvah at a time.
This simple concept is so important being that doing the mitzvot plays such a vital role in living out Judaism. So often Torah observance is presented as an all or nothing proposition, either you are Torah observant or you’re not. This approach can turn a lot of people off to pursuing a Torah life.
So then wherever you are in your Torah journey you can find a new mitzvah to add to your life and over time add one more and so on and so on (there are 613 mitzvot so there is a lot of on and on and on).
So this is our task find some new way to walk Torah and honor God this week:
1. Lighting Shabbat candles
2. Helping those in need
3. Studying Torah
4. Davenning
5. Giving to your synagogue
6. Buying kosher food
7. Putting a mezuzah up
These are simple acts and baby steps in infusing holiness into our lives.
So then let’s get doing our mitzvot, one mitzvah at a time!
Leading Like Yeshua – Servanthood
In Yochanan 20:17-28, we read about the important topic of leadership and we get some important lessons on leadership from our Messiah.
We read first of Ya’akov and Yochanan, the sons of Zavdai and their desire for a prominent role of leadership in the Messianic kingdom:
Then Zavdai’s sons came to Yeshua with their mother. She bowed down, begging a favor from him. He said to her, “What do you want?” She replied, “Promise that when you become king, these two sons of mine may sit, one on your right and the other on your left.” But Yeshua answered, “You people don’t know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I am about to drink?” They said to him, “We can.” He said to them, “Yes, you will drink my cup. But to sit on my right and on my left is not mine to give, it is for those for whom my Father has prepared it.” (vv. 20-23)
Yeshua’s response demonstrates that Ya’akov and Yochanan were not aware that leadership, as Yeshua demonstrated it was a path of sacrifice.
In the next verses we get some important words from Yeshua on what a leader should be:
But Yeshua called them and said, “You know that among the Goyim, those who are supposed to rule them become tyrants, and their superiors become dictators. Among you, it must not be like that. On the contrary, whoever among you wants to be a leader must become your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave! For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve — and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (vv. 25-28)
The path to follow to be a leader like Yeshua is not the path of seeking power or position for selfish motives to be a tyrant or to be a leader without taking into account that there is sacrifice required. Yeshua lays out here that leadership requires one to be a servant and to like our Messiah demonstrate a life of leading by serving others.
With Passover just about a month ago, I am reminded of Yeshua giving his talmidim an important lesson in leadership which took place at Passover:
Yeshua was aware that the Father had put everything in his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God. So he rose from the table, removed his outer garments and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then he poured some water into a basin and began to wash the feet of the talmidim and wipe them off with the towel wrapped around him. (Yochanan 13:3-5)
In this lesson on leadership we see our Messiah taking on the role of a slave and washing the talmidim’s feet, in this Yeshua’s teaching on leadership became a visual demonstration.
As we look to the future of Messianic Judaism we must seek to build up the next generation of leaders. For those of us in their 20’s and 30’s who will have to be these next generation leaders we must follow our Messiah’s example and grow as servant-leaders. For our mentors and teachers we need your support and help to stay on the right path and if we stumble off the path like Ya’akov and Yochanan did, like Yeshua did point us back to the right path.
So then let us seek to be like our Messiah and follow his example and lead by serving and may we each play our role in building a mature Messianic Judaism for the future!
Intentional Messianic Jewish Community – More than Saturday morning.
To obey is better than sacrifice
I want more thanSunday and Wednesday nights
‘Cause if you can’t come to me every day
Then don’t bother coming at all(To Obey is Better Than Sacrifice by Keith Green)
As we continue to explore the building of a Messianic Judaism for the future we need to realize that intrinsic to living a true Messianic Judaism is that it is more than just something we do on Saturday mornings but a lifestyle done seven days a week guided by our Torah.
The above words written by Keith Green, of most blessed memory, who was a Jewish follower of Yeshua who left this world before the Messianic Judaism movement began, and therefore framed his Yeshua faith within the Christianity of his day, lays out that a life of following God is not just attending services but living everyday for God. I imagine that if Keith would be living today as a Messianic Jew that I imagine the lyric would be “I want more than saturday mornings…”. One of my cherished memories was meeting Melody Green, Keith’s widow at a High Holyday service about 10 years ago and she shared that Keith would have loved to participate in Messianic Jewish life if he would have had the opportunity in this world. He is now living each moment in the radiance of King Messiah.
Though we don’t have Sunday and Wednesday as our days of religious services (common in evangelical Christianity), the lesson we can learn is that there is more to a Messianic Judaism life, more to walking in the way of Torah, than just attending Shabbat services and doing Messianic Judaism for 2-3 hours on Saturday mornings. Messianic Judaism is a life of walking Torah everyday and is more than just being a Sabbatarian, but a Jewish life of walking a Torah life each day.
So how can we consciously build up a daily walking in Torah ways?
The key is community, being that Judaism is to be lived communally. We need to seek to build up chavurot, Erev Shabbat gatherings, home study groups and even seek to build intentional communities of Messianic Jews living together, either in shared housing, in the same apartment building or in houses in the same neighborhood. We need to be in community to fully live out our lives walking Torah in “the other 6 days”.
We have to move beyond the “commuter synagogue” model wherein are “community” is grounded in whatever people are willing to travel 20-50 miles to Saturday services and at 2pm, head back to their separate lives. If we want Messianic Judaism continuity, we have to have Messianic Judaism community.
May we seek to walk in God’s Torah each day and seek to build living breathing 24/7 Messianic Judaism communities!
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