Weekly Bracha 8

This week in the Messianic, Jewish, and Christian blogosphere:

• A Place Where Everyone Can Belong – John McKee writes,

  …as the last two years of the 2000s took shape, I got to see what the real battle for our faith community is going to be about. It is not going to be about the latest (re)calculated date for the Second Coming, whether it is okay for Believers to examine Jewish mysticism, or even how the Torah is relevant for all of God’s people.The battle for the 2010s is going to be about how every Believer can be included in the Messianic movement.

  I wholeheartedly agree.
  
  
• Jewish Jesus and Anti-Semitism – Aaron Eby argues for viewing Jesus as a reformer of human hearts within the context of Judaism, thus nipping in the bud a primary raison d'être for Christian anti-Semitism.
  
  
• Has the Law Been Fulfilled? – Bookmark this one. This extensive, engaged treatise on Yeshua’s words in Matthew 5:17-20, what is called “one of the most important verses in the New Testament for the Messianic movement”, examines Yeshua’s relationship to the Torah, what it means to fulfill the Law, and whether Yeshua’s fulfillment of the Law is a future event.
  
  
• We Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Saying “Rabbi Jesus” – After the recent controversy in which a chief rabbi of an Israeli town called Jesus a model rabbi, this Jewish Chronicle article suggests Jews be educated about the historical Jesus: a Shabbat-keeping, synagogue-attending, kosher-eating, Torah observant Jew. Hat tip to Aaron Eby.
  
  
• IDF soldiers in Haiti – The Israeli Defense Force sends soldiers, surgeons, and aid to Haiti in response to the recent earthquake.
  
  
  
  
• Old Testament Israel and Racism – Calvin Smith addresses the view held by some anti-Israel Christians that the idea of God having a chosen ethnic people is racist theology. Hat tip to Yeze and Gev.
  
  
• Yahrzeit of Rabbi Yitzchak Kaduri – On the anniversary of the death of the kabbalist rabbi who may well have been a believer in Yeshua, First Fruits of Zion looks back on the life of the honored rabbi.
  
  
• Kosher But Unclean – Here, Aaron Eby discusses a common confusion by Messianics and Christians between the terms “clean” and “kosher”. Did you know something can be kosher and unclean? He writes,

  For example, if you performed the mitzvah of burying the deceased, you have contracted corpse contamination/uncleanness (tum’ah) that is transmitted by touch. All food that you eat while in that state will become unclean the moment you touch it. But it is still perfectly kosher. And you have no choice but to eat kosher but unclean food.
  

• The Target – Messianic blogger James Pyles writes about Jewish anti-missionary activity, and its unanticipated audience: Messianic gentiles. James writes,

  In our zeal to attach ourselves to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we want to score a “bulls eye”. Sometimes, if we confuse the focus with the lens, and we select the wrong target; Judaism itself, as our object of interest and even worship. God is the real target in the absolute sense and our instructions for understanding how to “hit the target” are contained in the Bible.

  […] should we choose to wear tzitzit, learn Hebrew, study Talmud, and pray facing Jerusalem, we need to keep our eyes and our hearts focused on the correct reasons for doing so. The “Jewish stuff” doesn’t make Gentiles closer to God.

Podcasts:

• Acts 15 – Implementation of the Apostolic Decree, Part 3 – John McKee on the implementation of the apostle’s ruling on gentiles & Torah as recorded in Acts 15:

  
  
  p.s. McKee has finally entered the 21st century and has created an RSS feed for his podcasts.

• The Deity of Jesus – Hebrew Christian Dr. Michael Brown debates Kermit Zarley on the deity status of the Messiah.

  Part 1:
  

  Part 2:
  

• Yeshua the Wine Drinker – Derek Leman discusses Yeshua, wine, the kingdom of heaven, and much more.

Have a great shabbat and weekend, fine blog readers!