Rabbi warns: Some Christians are attempting to convert Jews

PJ Star.Com (Journal Star) ^ | April 1, 2003 | Sarah Okeson

[ComtedeMaistre]

Rabbi warns: Some Christians are attempting to convert Jews

Speaker says congregations should watch out for Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God

April 1, 2003

By SARAH OKESON of the Journal Star

PEORIA - Jews believing in Jesus as savior, says Rabbi Michael Cook, makes about as much sense as an International Society of Vegetarians for Meat.

"How can you eat meat and still be a vegetarian?" Cook asked.

Cook, perhaps the only rabbi in the United States with a Ph.D. in the New Testament, talked to about 60 people Monday at the synagogue shared by the two Jewish congregations in Peoria.

Cook, a professor at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati, said some Christian denominations have stepped up their efforts to convert Jews in the belief it will help bring about the second coming of Christ.

"They believe the only way that glorious end of the world can happen is if enough Jews move to Israel first or accept Jesus," Cook said.

He predicted Jews have about three more decades of strenuous conversion efforts to suffer through because the last time this happened - after the first millennium - efforts to convert Jews didn’t die out until 1035.

"We have 32 years of missionary fervor to get through," Cook said.

In the meantime, Cook ran through a list of believers to watch out for including Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God, Jews for Jesus and Messianic Jews.

He said Southern Baptist and Assemblies of God are sometimes misleading in their efforts to convert Jews and that Jews for Jesus was founded by a Baptist minister.

"Their big desire is to convert Jews without Jews knowing they are leaving the Jewish fold," Cook said of Jews for Jesus.

The rabbi said Catholics and liberal Protestants stopped trying to convert Jews after the Holocaust and said Jews had a convenant with God and didn’t need to worry about being saved.

[mosby]

What are you so bloody concerned about? If a Jew is strong in faith he will not convert. Your statement that your concern is with "methods" rather than the actual attempt at conversion sounds to me like a weak rationalization. If your people for the last 50 years had spent more time at the synagogue and less time promoting every nutty liberal cause de jour, I suspect they would be much less susceptible today to Christian evangelism.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Mariott? Mais non. Best Western, perhaps.

[tang-soo]

Moshe Rosen spoke at my (gasp! Baptist!) church in Virginia about 10 years ago.

Zola Levitt www.levitt.com spoke at my church (Baptist) 3 years ago. He was awesome. I've enjoyed his ministry for years and subscribe to his newsletter.

[DensaMensa]

}Off the top of my head, I would think James (Christ's brother, not the other son of Zebedee) would be a "Judah-ite"

That makes sense to me. Thanks!

[Gurn]

He got quiet after I asked him for a Scriptural citation for that one.

[power2]

"I think what he means by "heartfelt" isn't an emotional descriptive, but a faith descriptive. The "heartfelt" people believe and live their faith as opposed to merely mouthing it and following the litany on Sunday. The belief isn't based on more emotion, the belief infuses their lives.

But my original point stands..."heart-felt" in both emotional and faith arenas can lead to the same errors...following "feelings" instead of "truth". I may "feel" and have "faith" that Jews are truly "evil" (as many Germans felt in the 1930's due to the rampant anti-Semitism at the time), and therefore support their destruction. "Fact" is that no race nor people are intrinsicly (sp?) evil, therefore no race should be destroyed. There are many nations and races today that harbor what I would consider to be "heart-felt" beliefs that are in error. Again, "feelings" do not equat to truth.

I agree with your statement that "The "heartfelt" people believe and live their faith as opposed to merely mouthing in and following the litany on Sunday. The belief isn't based on more emotion, the belief infuses their lives."

However, the "heart-felt" belief that infuses their lives isn't necessarily the Truth, and in fact may be evil. Satan uses "feelings" to confuse us.

[Quix]

Were you despined before marriage or after?

And were there any owls in your bellfry before marriage?

Fascinating plant.

[EternalVigilance]

Nah, I think you've got it wrong. Matthew was a Levite, for example.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Symbolic of perfection. In other contexts, 7 is symbolic of perfection. There's no literally perfect number any more than there is a perfect color.

[Bella_Bru]

What are you so bloody concerned about?

With counter missionary groups like Jews For Judaism, I am not that concerned.

[DensaMensa]

}Matthew was a Levite, for example.

Good info. With a few more posts we should have the entire list!

[Quix]

Only if they haven't been elevated enough

whether by enough . . .

wives

or toe-ing the mark for the Bishop

or

enough Temple ceremonies

or

???

[HiTech RedNeck]

lolololol.

Some men do become spineless after marriage, 'tis true.

[mrb1960]

This looks like a good place to say,

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHWWWWWWWWAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Blast it man, that's what evangelical christianity is supposed to do!!!!!!!!

[Quix]

INCLUDING

FEELINGS

ABOUT NOT HAVING FEELINGS!!!

Part of the problem is that spiritual descernment occurs in part in the realm of registering on our physical being through our emotions.

That doesn't mean the origin is emotion.

Tricky to talk about.

Tricky to be solid, balanced and accurate about.

Doesn't mean one should throw out the baby with the bath.

[ApesForEvolution]

Watch out for those evangeilizing Christians...oooooh. Scary.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Do you believe a carrot is orange? Are you sure? If so, then that is a heartfelt belief and when someone tells you carrots are purple, you will say, at least to yourself, "No they aren't, they are orange." Is it therefore dangerous to have such a heartfelt belief? Is that belief, since it is heartfelt, based upon a feeling? No, it's just that you live your life with an understanding that carrots are orange not purple. Not based upon emotion, but internalized completely.

[Quix]

Have seen more than I care to of those!

[Princeliberty]

The sad thing is if you look at Europe today,
Jews have something to worry about but
is not evangelical Christians, is
the Hegelian Europeans.
Evengelical Christians are the very ones
standing in the way of repression of Jews.
There are a lot of people in Europe
who starting to show their true colors
and the very ones who hate evangelical
Christians are the very ones who hate Jews
and want to repeat history.

[EternalVigilance]

I'm not too sure that the Scripture really says what tribe each one came from.

Of course, by that point in history, the relevance of that data was not exactly critical; seeing tht He was taking a people for Himself from every tribe and tongue.