A lot of Messianic folks, having been led by God out of certain cultural and even Christian norms, tend to be ultra harsh in their criticism of Christians who haven’t made the same leap.
With Christmas coming this weekend, I encourage Messianic folks to be kind to our Christian brothers, and, as Messianic scholar J.K. McKee has written in his excellent article on Christmas,
It bothers me, though, when I see a mean-spirited attitude manifest itself among Messianics—who do not appear to know how to love their neighbor as themselves (Leviticus 19:18), or treat others as they would like to be treated during the holidays (Luke 6:31). This is especially true when we consider that most evangelical Christians celebrate Christmas believing that they are honoring the birth of the Lord—an event attested to in the Scriptures! How are we to mature in this area, acting more like adults, and showing respect for others?
The leaders and teachers of Messianic Chapter 1 have largely decided that the way to communicate is by exclaiming “Christmas is pagan!” and have given Ebenezer Scrooge a real run for his money in the anti-Christmas department. The leaders and teachers of the forthcoming Messianic Chapter 2 have to do better and have to show that there is a different way to do this. We have to communicate via our actions of faith that we are not unloving, mean-spirited, and unbalanced people for whom “pagan” is the word of choice. We have to communicate instead that we love our Lord and Savior so much, that we will not commemorate His birth on a day that was used to honor gods and goddesses and licentious revelry. We instead have an eight-day celebration of God’s victory over evil to remember during this same time, where we consider resisting assimilation into the world, and His ongoing plan of salvation history yet to unfold.
Amen. Good Shabbos. :)
ReplyDeleteChristianity has been the largest force of murder, persecution, and hatred of Jews and Judaism in well over a thousand years.
ReplyDeleteTerrible things have been done to Jews on December 25th, and it not a secret, its history. The reason is because that was part of the sentiment of the holiday.
If somebody wants to hate this holiday and have nothing to do with it - better for them than to be friendly to something which comes from no good place and has no good origin - but instead has been a terrible date for the Jewish people and for the advancement of Tora and the Kingdom of David in the world.
And that is something else I don't get...
If one reads Samuel through Kings, and THEN starts reading Isaiah and the rest of the Prophets. He'll see that the restoration of Israel's existence as in the days of David is the whole entire point of the 'Messiah'. He is called the 'Tzemach', meaning 'Branch' in the Tanakh because he is a descendant of David, fulfilling the promise to David for a king who will complete the Kingdom which David began. (YES, this is a literal Kingdom on earth, in the Land of Israel, wherein the whole Tora will be the law and standard throughout.)
NOWHERE does it mention a man-god dying for the world's sins and causing the creation of a religion which would come to persecute and kill more Jews and oppose Judaism more than any other evil on the face of the earth. That is the DIRECT OPPOSITE of the redemption and the return to Israel's/Torah's/HaShem's sovereignty on this earth as in the days of King David.
Unless someone is coming back to do something, looks like this person we know, Conrad Montgomery, is right in saying that the dude coming, the 'Tzemach' is not the J-man.
Isn't the Messiah also supposed to come and bring peace to all the world? In spite of how the worship of the Messiah has been historically misused by Christianity, there are some of us to look to him to bring about the long promised peace to the world.
ReplyDeleteI don't celebrate Christmas for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is my wife and children being Jewish, but I do know people who do celebrate this event in the spirit of the one who will bring peace to everyone.
In the words of Tiny Tim, Merry Christmas, God bless us, every one of us!
ReplyDeleteThe Tenakh *does* predict Yeshua's death and his justification of the world through his death.
ReplyDeleteYou've just chosen to interpret those Tenakh passages in light of your anti-missionary friends interpretations. We've seen those, and reject them.
Good day.
If you chose to abstain from Christmas, good for you. If you chose to abstain because you feel it is inaccurate, or fraught with doctrinal problems, that's great. If you chose to abstain out of solidarity with a people that have been wronged many times under the banner of Christmas, thats wonderful. All of these are good, solid reasons to chose not to participate in Christmas. However, the things I hear from many Messianics are NOT good solid reasons, but bitter vitriol and half researched claims that they read on the internet. I certainly appreciate where Jewzilla is coming from, but his reasoning, while perfectly legitimate, is not the one I often hear, and I think it is good of this post to attempt to clear the air of some of the misinformation out there (this is not to say that I agree with all of what was said about Christianity by Jewzilla).
ReplyDeleteJudah,
ReplyDeleteThe burden of proof falls on anyone who chooses to say the 'Messiah' has come. Kings, Priests, etc are the people who are "anointed". All of them are "Messiahs", however THE Messiah refers to a King (any king is is automatically Anointed/Messiah) of David's line to restore David's Kingdom of Torah/Israelite dominance. Thus the term "Tzemach/Branch" and "Netzer/Shoot" refer to righteous Davidic King to restore the grandeur of David's/Solomon's Kingdom.
Unless 'Yeshua' or 'Yehoshua`' returns to reign as a physical king, and given that his dad is descended from the tribe of Judah and specifically of David's line, then he cannot be The Messiah.
The most reasonable explanation is what I've heard from "Conrad Montgomery" whom we both know and respect, who said that the guy coming, namely the "Tzemach" is not Yeshua. It is said that perhaps Yeshua would be existent as the 'Malakh HaShem' in the cloud of glory over the Beith HaMiqdash. If Yeshua was actually taken up, and "returns" in this case, and a dual ben Yoseph-ben David Messiah package is true - then this could be true for those who believe Yeshua was Messiah.