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And that's why I'm being so hard on OP. I want the Jewish people to know their Messiah-King. I am trying to tear down a wall that we have built up by our lack of love, and OP is putting the stones right back in place by his unbridled tongue. Putting a wall, any wall, between a person and the Messiah is not an act of Christian love, but the ultimate act of hatred.

We see the full-blown Arminianism of your position here. Obviously, God has no significant role in salvation and is sprinkling plenty of prevenient grace on non-Christian Jews for you to accomplish the work of their salvation if only mean-spirited persons would stop saying naughty things.

You are actually attributing to OPie a position more powerful than that of Satan. According to you, OPie is capable of causing the eternal damnation of any Jews who are offended by fundamental Christian doctrine.

I begin to suspect you don't know the God of the Bible if this constitutes your opinion of Him and His determination to save His Elect from all nations.

And I hope that he repents of that soon, for one who hates his neighbor (defined by Yeshua to even include ancestral enemies, as Jews were to Samaritans) has broken every commandment all at once, and I don't want to see my old friend fall under judgment, even temporal judgment.

I'd bet you're a real albatross around the necks of your Jewish Christian friends. You may disobey scripture and pretend that there is something wrong with the plain teachings of Christ and His disciples but don't expect us to kneel at your little throne while you're pontificating on the subject. And, while it undoubtedly makes you feel extra special and extra holy, dribbling Hebraisms is just annoying. If you want to be consistent, I suggest you post all your posts here in Hebrew. Or stick to English.

We've faithfully preserved the NT--and because of that preservation, many Jews today are starting to see Yeshua as one of them!

As opposed to those evil stupid Jews in the New Testament like Paul and Peter and who actually wrote it and taught, like Jesus, doctrines extremely offensive to most Jews of their time and ever since? And why did this preservation of which you speak so glowingly take 1800 years for some Messianic Jews to actually believe? Certainly, they knew and read Christian scripture during the period.

We see the full-blown Arminianism of your position here. Obviously, God has no significant role in salvation and is sprinkling plenty of prevenient grace on non-Christian Jews for you to accomplish the work of their salvation if only mean-spirited persons would stop saying naughty things.

Not the only reason, no. But if it was impossible for us to put stumbling blocks in the path of the blind, why does the Bible command us not to?

Besides, how do you know that God hasn't predestined me and others like me to be the instrument by which some of the elect are brought into the Kingdom? Indeed, your attack betrays that you don't really understand your own Calvinism all that well, since by your implication, the Apostles could've sat on their hands and never left Jerusalem, and yet somehow God would just make all of the elect believe miraculously. (Which He could have, but He doesn't seem to have worked that way.)

And if our actions have no bearing on bringing people to the Lord, then why did Sha'ul say,

For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more. And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the Torah, as under the Torah, that I might gain them that are under the Torah; To them that are without law (mistranslation--the word here is anomos, which means "lawless" or "wicked"), as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to the Messiah,) that I might gain them that are without law. To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.
--1 Corinthians 9:19-23

You are actually attributing to OPie a position more powerful than that of Satan.

No, but I am attributing his words to the Adversary.

You may disobey scripture and pretend that there is something wrong with the plain teachings of Christ and His disciples . . .

There's not a darn thing wrong with the "plain teachings" of Yeshua HaMashiach or His apostles--there have been, however, a number of errors in the way those temporally and culturally separated from the original text have interpreted it.

Now, show where I have disobeyed Scripture or taught incorrectly from them--using specifics and real exegesis, not broad generalities--on this forum, and I will be happy to repent. If you cannot, then I suggest that you publicly withdraw the ad hominem.

(As warning, so I won't be accused of running away later, I'm going to be gone pretty much all weekend after five o'clock or so tonight, so if you don't get an answer back right away, it's just that I'm not near a computer.)

And, while it undoubtedly makes you feel extra special and extra holy, dribbling Hebraisms is just annoying.

I'm sorry that you find the original Hebrew names of our Lord and His Apostles annoying.

As opposed to those evil stupid Jews in the New Testament like Paul and Peter and who actually wrote it and taught,

In case you haven't noticed, I've been citing Sha'ul and Kefa (Peter), as well as Yeshua--obviously I don't think they got it wrong. But I do think that Sha'ul has been broadly misinterpreted, which was apparently happening even in his own day: "As also in all his [Sha'ul's] epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction" (2 Pt. 3:16).

. . . like Jesus, doctrines extremely offensive to most Jews of their time and ever since?

Yes, but those offensive doctrines are not what you imagine them to be. Yeshua never taught not to keep the Torah, just the opposite (Mat. 5:17-19). And Sha'ul taught that Jews should remain Jewish (1 Co. 7:18) and actually sacrificed in the Temple to refute the charge that he was teaching Jews not to keep the Torah (Acts 21:20-26). He even taught that the whole Church, Jew and Gentile alike, should keep the feast of Passover (1 Co. 6:6-8).

Yeshua was offensive simply because of who He is, but His enemies were never able to convict Him of any sin, least of all the sin of teaching against Torah, or even of teaching from it incorrectly.

Sha'ul was offensive because he was brining the Gentiles into the Church in record numbers without forcing them to circumcise--that is, to give up their nationalities and become fully Jewish. Read Acts 22 carefully. Sha'ul's audience listens in peace and apparent respect all through his personal testimony, through his witness that Yeshua is the Messiah and was raised from the dead. It is not until he announces his mission to the Gentiles that they erupt into anger (vv. 21-22)--and it was that part of the Gospel, that Gentile as well as Jew had a place in God's Kingdom, that put Sha'ul into chains.

Now, was that the only point of contention? No. Kefa and Yochanan (John) were arrested because of the offense of holding the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem--and by extension, the whole nation--accountable for Yeshua's death: "Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us" (Acts 5:28).

However, at no point was the issue ever that the Apostles were teaching Jewish believers not to keep the Torah, not to circumcise their children, not to keep the Sabbath, etc. Every time they were accused of such, they refuted it.

And why did this preservation of which you speak so glowingly take 1800 years for some Messianic Jews to actually believe?

It didn't. We have the (hostile) testimony of the early Church fathers that Messianic Jews were alive and well, if a minority, well into the fourth century, and that they were not universally rejected by their Gentile brethren--Justin Martyr is on record as saying that he accepted them as true Christians, if "weak" and John Crysostom's anti-semetic rants reveal that there were indeed Gentile believers who were joining the Jews in keeping the Feastdays of the Lord. Moreover, Shlomo Pines, an Islamic scholar, has found texts proving that Messianic Jewish believers survived well into the 11th century. It was not coincidental that Christopher Columbus and his crew left on the midnight of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain--his diary, though professing Christ, also shows distinctly Jewish terminology. In fact, the entire Spanish Inquisition was mustered for the purpose of hunting down Jews who had professed Christ (under duress or otherwise) but who kept Torah and Jewish tradition. And Martin Luther wrote two tracts, Against the Sabbath Keepers and Against the Judaizers which showed that in his day he was also in fact encountering Christians who wanted to keep the Torah.

The fact is that God has always kept a remnant of believing Jews to Himself, just as He promised, and we see repeatedly through history Gentiles like myself who have seen in the Scriptures that we too should keep the Torah--not for salvation, and not to put ourselves "under the Law" (i.e., under its punishments, under its fear), but because our Lord and Savior did, and we want to be like Him.

However, the fact is also that in every instance since the fourth century, those who have done so have been persecuted by the government-sanctioned Church as being "too Jewish" and "heretics"--so it's hardly surprising that we have never had much political power. Those who wanted to follow a Jewish Messiah in a Jewish way had to keep their heads down, or be persecuted, tortured, and killed.

It was only in the last two centuries, with the religious freedom that we take for granted in America, that Messianic synagogues could come about. And it is also because of America's acceptance and love for the Jewish people, inspired in no small part by Dispensationalism and Evangelicalism, that the walls have been slowly coming down. We're finally at the point where the overwhelming majority in Israel (75%, according to one poll that I've not been able to find online) accept Messianic Jews (that is, born Jews, not Gentiles like myself) as nevertheless being fully Jewish and able to make aliyah. We're seeing Orthodox Jews like Avi Lipkin crusading to give Christians in Israel their own representation in the Knesset.

Even many Jews who don't yet accept Yeshua as the Messiah are doing something unprecedented: They're reading the Gospel accounts. They're finding out what He taught on the Torah. They're recognizing Him as being one of their own in body, mind, and soul.

Has there been a recent turnaround? Yes, but it is not one disconnected from history, nor from the Bible. And it is the Bible that we must ultimately accept as our mutual authority.

You've challenged me to show how the whole Church could've gotten it wrong for 1800 years. I've shown that not all did, that there has always been a remnant. The only counter to that is to say that well, they weren't accepted by the Church as a whole, so they must've been wrong, and heretics. Of course, that not only is a faulty appeal to popularity, it also ignores the fact that the Reformation was kicked off because a young monk was willing to stand on the Word of God against what was then 1400 years of Church tradition. I am willing to do the same.

So let's put an end to appeals to popularity and tradition and get to the Word of God: Show me from the Bible that I am wrong--and not by a single verse ripped out of context (Gal. 3:28, which as P-Marlowe has shown is being just as falsely used to promote homosexuality), but by careful exegesis.

You can start by either showing how the Church is partially blind until the fulness of the Gentiles is come in, and that it is an enemy of the Gospel because of the Gentiles, or concede that "Israel" in Rom. 9-11 really does mean the Jewish people who are currently in disbelief.