08.02.09
VOM Update
It seems like there has been so much going on lately that I’m not focused on blogging these days. Now that we’re headed toward the last stretch of summer, I hope I’ll get more organized again. I was going to do another book review/comments on Me Against My Brother, but Brian handed me the August issue of Voices of the Martyrs and pointed out an article called, To Call Jesus “Messiah”. The article exposes persecution some Messianic Jews are experiencing in Israel from some ultra-Orthodox Jewish organizations including Yad L’Achim.
Messianic Jews are Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah and who follow the teachings of both the Old and New Testaments. Ultra-Orthodox Jews do not adhere to that and apparently can be hostile to those ideas and beliefs. Voices of the Martyrs mentions a few examples of Christian persecution in Israel and the West Bank as follows:
~May 15, 2008: Residents of Or Yehuda publicly burned hundreds of New Testaments in front of a synagogue while students danced around the burning books.
~May 1, 2008: Two chief Rabbis cancelled their International Jewish Bible Quiz after they learned a 15-year-old finalist was a Messianic Jew.
~March 2, 2008: Ami Ortiz– a dual American-Israeli citizen and son of a Messianic Jewish pastor–was seriously injured when a bomb exploded in his home in the West Bank settlement of Ariel. This bomb was left on his doorstep as a package for his dad. Months before, an unknown group circulated fliers in several Jewish cities. The fliers warned the public to be wary of missionaries who try to “steal souls.” They also contained pictures, names and the addresses of Messianic Jews. It is likely whoever left the bomb for the Ortiz family identified them though that flyer.
~November 8, 2007: A group of Austrian bishops were barred from the Western Wall, because they refused to remove crosses they wore. The Chief Rabbi said the crosses were “insulting and provacative.”
~October 23, 2007: Arsonists firebombed a church in West Jerusalem shared by Baptists and Messianic Jews.
When I read this article, I thought of Luke 21:12
But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name’s sake.
Deliver us up to the “synagogues?” I think Christians need to understand this better. The reason I think this is because I remember during the elections when Palin stated something to the effect that she (or we Christian Americans) was friends with Israel. Well actually all the candidates claimed that they were friends of Israel. However, I single out Palin because she claims to be a Bible-believing Christian. And from her “generalized” statement, I was left to wonder how much she (and many of us Christians) really understands about Israel and the Jews. I understand that our Christian faith has ties to Israel’s history and founding, which gives many of us Christians respect for the nation of Israel, but does she (and many of us) know that there are different types of Jews and that some persecute other Jews for their belief in Jesus as the Messiah? Does she know that there are Jews who hate gentiles, which include us Christians? And that they have a perjorative term for us non-Jews–”goy?” Often we are inundated with the radical Muslim idea of wiping out the “infidel.” This idea tends to rile up the masses to fight in the middle east. We are incensed that we would be thought of as the “infidel” worthy only of death. Yet, we don’t hear much about the ultra-Orthodox Jews who likewise would like to rid their areas of us “goys,” aka gentiles or non-Jews or essentially, infidels. If we aren’t to be completely removed, then our only value would be to use us for labor such as work that they would prefer not to do or for work that needs to be done on the Sabbaths when they are not allowed to work because of their religious beliefs. So really, to both the radical Muslim and the ultra-Orthodox Jew, we Christians are the outsiders. I find it interesting that we would favor one over the other, or villanize one over the other when both despise us. And while Muslims don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah, at least they have a respect for Jesus in that they claim Jesus was a prophet. The Orthodox Jews do not afford Jesus that much respect, if any at all. To the Orthodox Jew, Jesus is neither the Messiah nor a prophet of God. It’s not only the Palestinians that some Orthodox Jews want out of Israel, but also all the Christians. Why then would any Bible-believing Christian claim “unconditionally” that they are “friends” of Israel? Respect, yes, but “friends?” when they persecute our brothers and sisters? Were the pharisees friends of Jesus? Did Jesus claim He was friends with the pharisees?
Marlakins
