April 11, 2006
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B"H
Shlomo, please do post on this. Post on both - the attitude of the non-Jew regarding Israel and the relationship of Gentile believers to Jewish believers!!
OK, let's try this again. The attitude of the non-Jew to Israel and the Jewish people is one that concerns me a lot. Historically the record of the Church bears a dark stain in this area and I fear that not enough has yet been done to correct the problem. Let me explain a bit and then give you an example of what I mean.
Antisemitism and AntiJudaism
Antisemitism is well known as the hatred and despising of the Jewish people. All professing Christians that I know of would strongly argue that this attitude is sinful and thus displeasing to GOD. AntiJudaism is not so well known, but yet it is equally offensive to Jewish people as it is the despising and denigration of the Jewish religion. In this mindset Judaism, which is usually equated with the religion of the Old Testament, has been triumphed over or superceded by the religion of Jesus. Judaism is regarded as a dead ritualistic religion which focused on pleasing GOD by means of doing the works of the LAW, whereas Christianity is contrasted as being a religion of grace, free from the LAW. This view presupposes a negative attitude towards any type of observance of the LAW. Most, not all, Christian churches teach that any present observance of the LAW is indicative of a fall from grace.
Flowing from this negative attitude towards the LAW, the Christian church has historically said to the Jewish people, you are not allowed to live among us as Jews. This statement is exceedingly important in modern Jewish/non-Jewish relations. As I mentioned in a previous post, the point of contention between Jewish and non-Jewish believers is over the issue of the place of the LAW in the life of the disciples. From a Jewish point of view, the LAW is a very bad translation of a word which pertains to the particulars of the covenant which GOD established at Mt. Sinai. A better word would be Instruction. In Hebrew the word in question is Torah. The Torah is regarded as a gift from GOD. It teaches this newly formed covenant community how to live as the People of GOD. After 430 years of brutal slavery under the Egyptians, much work was needed to not only bring physical freedom to the people, but also to rebuild their sense of individual and collective self esteem.
For Jews, the Torah is a blessing. It is regarded as a tree of life. For Christians, the LAW is an accursed thing which was nailed to the cross with Jesus. This being the case, much work has to be done to establish unity between these two poles.
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More later, I promise.
Shlomo
Comments (2)
Thanks for covering this subject.
Interestingly, for the "non-Law" Christians, Jesus said that he came "not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it." Also, Paul intimated that if we accept God's grace through faith in Jesus, then we would gladly change our lives and live in agreement with God's statutes, although many things are now permissable because of the Gentiles being included - "unclean" foods, etc... So, those that say that we are free from the Law are not quite correct, I think. It might be better to say that we are free to fulfill God's instruction, not bound by it, legalistically.
Is this a correct view, in your estimation?
John
B"H
Hi John,
Hmmm, first let me thank you for your kind and thoughtful response. There is so much to say on this topic I hardly know where to start. I like your perspective although I don't agree with it completely. I'm going to make my response public so everyone can see and hopefully join in.
Shlomo
Comments are closed.