Messiah Journal and Messianic Gentiles

This post will take maybe 5 minutes to read. It ain’t for the Short Attention Span (“oooh, shiny!”) generation. If you’re easily distracted by shiny things, go elsewhere. Read 140-character status updates. Or something.

For the rest of you, I dare you to read it to the end. Double-dog dare you.

Good, now I’ve tricked you into trying, at least.

Your Attention, Please

The Messianic movement is growing and maturing. We’re sorting through theologies. We’re experiencing growing pains. There’s been a lot of fighting and bitterness between factions.

And many a fine blog reader have been caught in the crossfire.

The Messianic organization First Fruits of Zion (FFOZ) has done much to promote peace and maturity in the Messianic movement, presenting biblical teaching and sound scholarship in the face of conspiracy theories, wild apocalyptic scenarios, rigid zealotry, and the various fundamentalist kookiness that the Messianic movement has been drudging through.

I know several of the folks in FFOZ, and I can vouch: they’re honest people, earnest in their faith. They promote the peace of Messiah. I respect ‘em for it.

At the same time, it’s difficult to write clearly about FFOZ. They’ve made a significant theological shift that, honestly, feels like a slap in the face to all those folks that have sought out God’s commandments at high personal cost.

Still, I do my best to treat them kindly, better than I imagine the MJTI or UMJC would treat them if the roles were reversed. In my prayers, I make it a point to ask that God keep them along His path, that they would never end up opposing His plans, that even in their scholarly study and nose-to-the-texts, they would remain sensitive to God’s leading.

Messiah Journal 103

All that said, FFOZ is sending out a new issue of their flagship Messiah Journal this week. I want to give you fine blog readers a heads-up to what’s in the issue, and also offer my thoughts on the controversial matters therein.

Dark Days at FFOZ

Boaz Michael, head of FFOZ, starts off with a sobering description of the fallout after FFOZ’s theological change:

For months, we were flooded with letters from people attempting to prove to us that we were wrong… Others skipped trying to convert us and simply said, “Cancel my subscription.”

The end of 2009 brought us to the very brink. The poor economy had already critically drained us. HaYesod printing costs were enormous. The fallout from One Law combined into a perfect storm of economic disaster. I did the math. The end was near.

Last December, for the first time ever in the history of this ministry, we were unable to meet our payroll obligations.

It really pains me to hear stuff like this. They don’t deserve the poorhouse, folks, even if you disagree with them. They’ve done a boatload of laboring for God’s kingdom. I know it to be true, and I’ve seen only the tip of it. It’s a shame that some Messianics have wished them into bankruptcy.

But Boaz ends with a bright outlook:

Thank God, [closing FFOZ’s doors] has not yet been necessary. The Father has met our needs thus far and kept us afloat, and we trust him for continued provision and daily bread. After all, First Fruits of Zion is not my ministry, it is his, and it is in his hands to do with as he pleases.

The First Messianic Haggadah

After a listing of letters to the editor, which contains the usual comment from a mysterious D.L. whom I suspect runs a popular Messianic blog , Messiah Journal 103 documents what may be the first Messianic Haggadah: an 1890 work by Hebrew Christian Joseph Rabbinowitz entitled Haggadah For Israelites Who Believe in the Messiah Yeshua of Nazareth.

The Haggadah will likely generate some discussion between the traditionalist Messianic camp and the evangelical camp: like many of the Messianic pioneers, for better or worse, it envisions practice within a Jewish Christianity more than a separate Messianic Judaism. It seems the author envisioned his work as part of the Christian Eucharist.

The Haggadah itself is heavy on the Scripture, light on tradition. At the very least, an interesting view into how an early Messianic pioneer saw the Messiah in the Passover.

The Meal of Messiah

Boaz Michael describes the Chassidic Passover innovation of Se’udat Mashiach, or Meal of Messiah. He elaborates,

In the seventeenth century the founder of the Chassidic movement, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer (the Baal Shem Tov) instituted a new custom for the last day of Passover. He called it the Meal of Messiah (Se’udat Mashiach, תדועס חישמ). It consisted of a special, additional meal on the afternoon of the last day of Passover, paralleling the traditional third meal of Shabbat.

They gather together to end the festival with matzah, four cups of wine, and a special focus on the Messiah. The entire theme of the meal focuses on the coming of Messiah and the final redemption. The meal is festive in spirit. Everyone wishes one another “Lechayim! (to life!)” while discussing their insights into Messiah and their dreams and hopes for the Messianic Era.

Boaz encourages Messianics to adopt the Meal of Messiah. He explains,

For the last several years, my family has been keeping the Chassidic custom of ending the last day of Passover with a Meal of Messiah. Not because we are Chassidic or trying to be more orthodox, but because we have found it to be a delightful, meaningful, and joyful custom to focus us on the real meaning of Passover: the great redemptive work of our Messiah.

Personally, I think it’s a fine tradition, and a great fit for Messiah’s disciples.

We Are The God Fearers

Most controversial article, in my view. I’ll explain why in a moment.

Toby Janicki ponders, “What do we do with all the gentiles in the Messianic movement?” After all, many of the folks at FFOZ, including Janicki himself, are Messiah-loving, Torah-keeping gentiles, and most of their readership, I suspect, are as well.

Toby’s answer is, Messianic gentiles are the modern version of the God-fearers of the 1st century. God-fearers were those who attached themselves to the God of Israel, who voluntarily kept the commandments, and were respected by Israel, yet there were not full converts to Judaism, and by no means were they identified as Israelites.

Janicki explains,

First-century Judaism referred to this latter type of semi-converted Gentiles as “God-fearers” (Yirei HaShem, יראי השם or Yirei Shamayim, יראי שמים ). While not a technical term per se, it referred to “non-Jews who adopted certain Jewish practices without actually converting to Judaism;” in essence it was “an umbrella term for Gentiles with varied interests in Judaism.”

The Jewish community expected these God-fearers to hold themselves to the moral Noahide laws of the Torah, but many observed additional commandments of Torah on different levels. For example, to various extents, God-fearers kept the Sabbath, the festivals, and the dietary laws. Some even underwent circumcision, particularly in the second generation. Through their observance of the Torah they expressed their love for the God of Israel.

A New Testament example he gives is that of Cornelius, the righteous gentile of Acts 10,

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort, a devout man who feared God with all his household, gave alms generously to the people, and prayed continually to God … And they said, “Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation.”

Janicki further suggests that the gospel message found fertile ground firstly among the gentile God-fearers who already knew of the Torah and prophets, and suggests bits of Acts and Romans were addressed to these same God-fearers.

Janicki ends with an bright summary:

As Gentile believers today realize that Messiah has spiritually grafted them into the nation of Israel, they feel drawn to the Jewish people and desire to worship alongside God’s chosen as fellow-heirs of the covenants and promises. Just like the God-fearers of old, we too have cast our lot with Israel.

Thoughts on God-Fearers

Today’s Messianic gentiles are like the old God-fearers in many ways: having been drawn by God to Israel, to Israel’s Messiah, to Israel’s Scriptures, to God’s commandments. Janicki does well arguing this case.

Still, I can’t help but point out the big fat elephant in the room: What about Messiah? Didn’t he change the status of gentiles as first-class citizens of the commonwealth of Israel? Isn’t there something new here? I think of Ephesians 2:

Remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called "uncircumcised" by those who call themselves "the circumcision" (that done in the body by the hands of men)— remember that at that time you were separate from Messiah, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Messiah Yeshua you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Messiah.

Messiah changed the status of gentiles. Promoted ‘em. He did something new.

Gentiles were excluded from citizenship in Israel, foreigners to the Torah, without God. Messiah changed all that. Reversed it.

Like I said, big fat elephant.

Respected as God-fearers were, they were neither physically nor spiritually Israel, were not citizens, were not co-heirs of the promises to Abraham, were not first-class. Judaism unmistakably deemed God-fearers as second-class behind Jacob’s descendants and Judaism’s proselytes.

Messianic gentiles are God-fearers, but that label suggests the existence of the old wall of separation:

Here are the authentic Israelites, the Jews and the Judaism proselytes…

…and over there are the lesser God-fearers.

FFOZ isn’t trying to portray this image, praise God, but that is the implication.

Imagine the roles reversed. It’s as if I said,

“Gentiles in Christ are the true believers, and Jews are the respected covenant-keepers. To be a true believer, however, you must be a Gentile in Christ, or become a proselyte.”

Such a statement, well-intentioned as it is, misses the thrust of the Scriptures. Likewise, “God-fearers” isn’t deliberately demeaning, but it is implying inequality.

The last thing this Messianic movement needs is more inequality. But the end result of 2 Church theology, what’s called bilateral ecclesiology, will inevitably end in Messianic gentiles being marginalized as something less than a Messianic Jew.

“God-fearer” isn’t the solution to gentiles in the Messianic movement.

I challenge FFOZ to boldly stand up for Messiah’s gentile disciples and publicly acknowledge:

1. Gentiles in the Messianic movement are here by God’s hand.
   
   
2. Messianic gentiles are not in any way inferior to Messianic Jews.
   
   
3. Gentiles in the Messianic movement are evidence of God’s move among the nations.
   
   
4. Because Messianic gentiles are a result of God’s move among the nations, viewing Messianic gentiles as a “problem”, or suggesting they return to the Church, is ultimately opposing a move of God.
   
   
5. Gentiles in the Messianic movement are first-class citizens of the commonwealth of Israel, far greater than anything Orthodox Judaism could label them with (e.g. “Noachides”).
   
   
6. Special congregational treatment of Messianic Jews over Messianic gentiles promotes inequality in the vein of the inequality described in Acts 6, and is ultimately contrary to the New Testament model.

In the end, Janicki wrote a great article in “God-Fearers”, and explores an area bound to be raised in Messianic communities. Ultimately, the conclusion that Messianic gentiles are merely God-Fearers promotes inequality. I suspect this wasn’t Janicki’s intention, but that is the conclusion a lot of folks will draw after digesting this article.

Conclusion

There’s much more to cover in Messiah Journal, but I regret this post is already too long for the 5 Minute Internet Attention Span.

I particularly regret not reviewing Aaron Eby’s article on the Temple and how it addresses often-negative Christian view of the Temple. Perhaps in another post.

Bottom line: Go get a copy of Messiah Journal. Parts will provoke you. Other parts will lift you up. You’ll question your theologies and will be forced to check the Scriptures – and that’s a good thing.

Ultimately, it will sharpen and harden your faith and make you a better disciple of the Master.

Kudos to the fine folks at FFOZ for putting out such a scholarly, Messiah- and Torah-focused publication for God’s people. They’ve done a fine job, and I hope you fine blog readers can get your hands on Messiah Journal and benefit from their laboring.