Yeshua Explored
27th June 2022
Roots!
How Jewish is your Jesus?
(This series of articles was written a year after the first lockdown in March/April 2021)
Previous articles are still available on the Premier Christian radio website – https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Blogs2/Yeshua-Explored – (until they finally pull the plug!)
We need to see Jesus in his historical context, not just the incarnation in the Gospels, but the back story provided in the Old Testament. We need to see Jesus as an agent of Creation and as a regular visitor as the Angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Scriptures. We need to see him in his Jewish environment, his rabbinical way of teaching, his observance of Torah and the festivals of the Lord. We need to see why he was the Messiah, the Son of God and the Son of Man, to see beyond the familiar slogans. We also need to understand subsequent Jewish history, as a result of the corporate rejection of our Messiah. Finally, we need to understand that Jesus is going to return one day in a thoroughly Jewish manner, to a Jewish location and instigated by events centred around his own Jewish people.
Now there’s a paragraph packed with negative trigger words for our current Church. That’s the sadness of it but it’s the bitter fruit of the dark side of Church history. It is a persistent theme in most of my books, the trajectory the Church has taken since the 2nd Century to move further and further away from the Jewish soil that birthed it. It’s a marmite thing, either we get it or we don’t. Those writers who get it can’t help proclaiming it constantly, those who don’t get it avoid it like the plague.
Yet … why isn’t it treated as a significant factor in the journey and story of the Christian faith, rather than being airbrushed out and ignored? In a Church that celebrates its key events in pagan fashion (Christmas trees, easter bunnies etc.) what can be wrong in returning to Biblically pure expressions straight from the Hebrew Scriptures? In a Church that has a prominent current voice in anti-racism attitudes, why is anti-Semitism (and anti-Israelism) not afforded equal billing? In a Church that has rediscovered the beauty and relevance of God’s Word, why do theologians still use the tools of Greek philosophy to interpret it, rather than the wisdom provided by the Hebraic mindset? These are troubling questions and the Church is nowhere near to answering them, because these questions have no place in a current agenda that is in thrall to our postmodern, relativistic, victim-driven society. They also hark back to a sordid tale that the Church would rather sweep under the carpet, a tale that seemingly is still being played out. More of this in a later article.
You can be free of this. When you became a new believer you were ushered into God’s Kingdom, with its wonderful promises and glorious heritage. You were joining Christ, you were not joining a Church, with centuries of dirty baggage and cluttered with man’s foibles, ambitions and structures. You were grafted into God’s Olive tree, a spiritual heritage that traces back to Abraham and the Hebrew fathers of our faith.
… and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root (Romans 11:17)
Similarly, to remind you of your new status, you are part of Christ, the true vine tree. You are a branch, one among many, all connected to Christ, but working together in a common purpose.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
It is surely worth noticing that we are all individually connected to Christ through this tree, not to each other. He is our Master, our leader. This is not the role of the pastor, despite what we may have been told! Beware of any man-made structures that we tend to install, allowing us to lord it over each other! Remember, spiritual gifts are meant to serve the church not control it!
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. (1 Peter 4:10)
This is your identity, a grafted-in branch to the Hebrew olive tree and a branch in the vine of Jesus. You are part of a supernatural entity, not a physical organisation with bricks and mortar and structures and hierarchies, many just replicas of their secular equivalents.
Can you see it? As I said earlier, you are free. It is you, feeding from these trees, secure in your standing with God, being guided by the Holy Spirit and instructed by Divine Scriptures. Inherit the blessings this affords you, not necessarily the politics, prejudices and patterns of a “Church”. Always remember, you are the Church, the Ekklesia, one of the ‘called out ones’. God will lead you to others, who will teach you, help you, minister to you, feed you and love you. This is reciprocal and your role is to do the same to others. This is true discipleship in action and living as a member of God’s Kingdom. It is pure and it is lovely. This is the original model of God’s Church from the very beginning. Don’t let others deflect you from this, though there are many good churches who follow this Biblical model and should be commended for doing do. More about them in the next chapter.
You have not joined a social club, or an entertainment hub, or a cosy discussion forum, you have become part of a living entity, with Christ at the head and the rest of us waiting patiently for our Divine assignments and the gifts that God will freely give you to get the job done.
There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. (1 Corinthians 12:4-11)
This is what being Church is, not as a consumer of Christian merchandise, or as a financial donor. Christ is in charge, not your pastor or minister. They have no structural control over you, they are fellow branches. They are simply believers who have discovered their gifts and, if they are true to their calling, using them to serve others.
So, returning to the point I need to make here, you are an individual in God’s kingdom, you don’t have to inherit and follow Church history and traditions of men. Buck the trend and feel free to discover your Hebraic roots and God will bless you more than you can ever realise. Take charge!
This is an extract from the book, Flockdown Church: Back to the drawing board?, available for £5 at https://www.sppublishing.com/flockdown-church-278-p.asp
