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.

[power2]

....He was referring to the internalization of belief, that a "heartfelt" belief was one you really "believed" rather than one you merely ascribed to. Not an emotional belief. Not a belief based upon emotion. Just a belief that you, well, believed....

My friend, my point is the same. A "belief" does make truth. Truth is truth. "Internalization of belief" does not make truth. The carrot is orange, regardless of "internalization", regardless of emotion, regardless of what is taught in your home or country, regardless of century. Scripture and the Church give us the truth. Doesn't matter what biases are taught country to country, preacher to preacher, denomination to denomination, etc.

And, I hope I confuse things further, what is the difference between a "heart-felt" belief and a "belief that you suscribe to"?

[Proud2BAmerican]

Are you LDS? If so, can you answer a question for me?

I've heard/read that Mormons believe that after you die, you get your own planet. Or you become a planet. Is this a belief of LDS? Or if not, could you explain the belief to me?

Thanks in advance.
(by the way - this is sincere curiousity -- I'm not trying to bait you, or flame or anything)

[Quix]

Perhaps all of us need to doubly insure that we are talking mostly about ideas and issues etc. when the emotions rise--and not people and their motives . . . and sometimes perhaps, for the thin skinned--not even their sacred cows.

[power2]

Corrections to post 200:

....A "belief" does NOT make truth....

.....hope I DON"T confuse things further....

[jeremiah]

Your "facts" concerning Mormonism, carry no weight with those that believe in their brand of Christianity. Many negatives have been written about the Catholics, who spawned the Lutherans and Protestants, they all have skeletons in the closet. We will all be judged by other than man, what one chooses to believe is as likely to end in judgement as reward.

[ApesForEvolution]

Moo. LOL!

[ApesForEvolution]

Following the logos and rhema in tandem are what the Scriptures call for. Now why would anyone take it upon themselves to do it any differently, if truth is their aim?

[stands2reason]

Church of Christ is fundie/evangelical, right?

[Quix]

I suppose both

HEARTFELT

AND

subscribed to

are matters of degree.

But in general,

most people would consider that HEARTFELT was

MUCH MORE DEEPLY SUBSCRIBED TO MUCH MORE EARNESTLY, AUTHENTICALLY, LIVED-OUT-LY

than something merely given an idle mental subscription to.

BTW, how long has it been since you read Ecclesiastes?

"TRULY TRUE TRUTH"

can be a LOT more subjective than you seem to imply.

YES, I AGREE, THERE *IS* OBJECTIVE TRUTH. And, I agree The Bible is TRUE TRUTH. And Knowing HIM WHO IS TRUTH sets us free etc.

But short of the basic cardinal doctrines--I sometimes say that which is beyond

--LOVING GOD WHOLLY
--LOVING NEIGHBOR AS SELF
--DOING UNTO OTHERS . . .

can easily get into arguable stuff. And even what constitutes the above superordinate priorities can be quite arguable.

NONE of us have God in ANY REMOTELY CLOSE thing to being A TIDY LITTLE BOX. We don't even have his little toenail in a tidy little box. HE'S BIGGER THAN ALL THAT.

And probably from His perspective, our apprehension of THE TRULY TRUE TRUTH would look like something uncomfortably close to a lie compared to HIS APPREHENSION OF THE WHOLE OF THE TRULY TRUE TRUTH ABOUT EVERYTHING--just because of the infinite difference in degree of knowledge and it's degree of apprehension.

I believe in The Truth. But The Truth is primarily a Person--not primarily a set of "objective" "easily" quantifiable, measureable anything.

I don't know that "objective" has a lot of import in a lot of situations any more--even the "hard" science of physics. Certainly it's useful to a point. But it's not God.

And I still think you put more faith in reason than is warranted.

REASON DOES NOT EQUAL FAITH.
FAITH DOES NOT EQUAL REASON.

I'm thankful my faith is a reasonable faith based on reasonable evidence.

But faith is born of Spirit.

Reason may not be.

[saradippity]

You are right,they remind me of those about whom John said Jesus spoke of,in his letters to the 7 churches, Apocalypse 2 and 3. To update and paraphrase:Those who say they are Catholic and are not.They lie.

[jeremiah]

Wasn't Satan the light bringer?

[Quix]

Evangelical.

Not sure how to slice the "Fundamentalist" label any more.

28 or so years ago when I wrote my dissertation it seemed to mean something different--people who fundamentally believed in the basic fundamentals of the New Testament etc doctrines and evangelized accordingly and supposedly attempted to live accordingly.

Now it seems to mean people who scream a lot about the above in narrow, rigid, loud, radical ways and degrees.

Church of Christ's significant distinction to me has always been--no instruments--because the Bible in the NT didn't mention musical instruments to their notion--they thought such were evil.

Am now in a group who left that for Charismania. Great group.

I think they also think that Baptism is absolutely 100% essential to get into Heaven. No dying in an auto accident on the way to Baptism.

[Quix]

There's Catholic

and there's Roman

I have no intention of surrendering the very good word

Catholic

to the exclusive use of the Romans.

[HiTech RedNeck]

As Lucifer, yes. Now all Satan can do is masquerade as that.

[saradippity]

Fine. Be Catholic then,you will find everything you believe in the Catholic Catechism.That's the beauty of it,no pretending,this is what you believe,you state those beliefs to the world and you act in accord with what you say you believe.The world will be better and you'll get to heaven.

In some ways it's harder than many other ways because man tends not to really want to persevere and "overcome" the world. Yet Christ did and He showed us how we could do it too. We stumble,we stagger,we fall and we pick ourselves up,are grateful for the grace He has given us and keep trying.

On the other hand it is simple and beautiful and true. It is really not confusing,the "yoke" is easy,the "burden" light.It's man's denial that there is any "yoke" that is the "lie",the first step into the confusion that comes from the "eney" and leads to chaos.

[saradippity]

"eney" should be "enemy"

[power2]

There's Catholic

and there's Roman

I have no intention of surrendering the very good word

Catholic

to the exclusive use of the Romans.

"I have no intention of surrending the very good word "Catholic" to the Messianic Jews, or to the Assemblies of God, or to the Bapists, or to the Presbyterians (sp?), or to the Methodist, or to the 25,997 other Christian "denominations" that have sprung up since the "reformation" in the last 500 years. "

You're mind is made up...Catholics are wrong. It doesn't matter what the facts are, what 1500 straight years of solid foundation is; the teaching of Augustine, etc. are useless.

"Truth" is irrelevant; "feelings" rule, what I think Scripture says to me today is relevant today, and never mind what it says to my neighbor. It doesn't matter. Sola Scritura, my friend. What I read goes. If you read something different, start your own darn demonination, just like 25,999 people before you.

Gee, isn't that the same thing as "feeling".

[kancel]

>>Oh, so an "easy kill" is the goal?<<

I've actually been thinking about this a bunch lately because of a particular JW lady who comes around here.
She showed up just before the New Year and said they wre in the area sharing a verse. Well the majority of verses are not that long so I said sure. Then she asked if it would be okay if she came back at a later date. Somewhere in the exchange I had already informed her I also was a Christian.

Quickly thinking I decided I hadnt seen a JW person in ages in our neighborhood and certainly she meant the next time they end up here after making the rounds aroudn town- right? And really- I am already a Believer- not exactly a tally mark for her Great Commision Belt- she has nonbeleivers to attend to surely. Im thinking I wont see her for 6 months at least and certainly I shouldnt be rude to a fellow Christian just because we happen to have some theological differences.

The next week she shows up again- again under the pretense of just sharing a verse. This time she asks may she come back next Tuesday. Well certainly it wont hurt anything to let her come over for a minute next Tuesday to share her weekly verse. Only the next Tuesday she presents me with some "study textbook" and apparently next Tuesday actually meant "every Tueday from here until you die" for Bible Study. It seems like thsi has been going on forever already.

To this date I have still been unable to get rid of her. Easy kill? So far yes since I dont have the backbone to tell her where to go (not very Christian is that.) I think the practice is extremely deceptive and prideful to boot. Why couldnt she have been honest and said "Do you want to start a weekly Bible Study with me." I could have said "No" and gotten on with my life. I have no idea if her weasely ways are her own or her churches. As it is I hate Tuesdays right now. Its hard because she really is a nice older lady, a concentration camp survivor for an idea of how old, if you can look past her serpentine methods, and she really does stay for only about 15 minutes.

I have no idea hwo to get out of this mess. When we restarted homeschool after Christmas break I thought the "oh well be busy with school" would work- no. I tried again another week with "Well Tuesday really isnt such a good day" - "Okay then what woudl be a good day" . Another time I used "Im really to busy to have this commitment every week" - "Well we could do it every other week then. The children enjoy it so much" (I didnt mention my children are part of thsi Bible Study with that gold colored Bible Story book they give out.) Slippery I tell you, that one is just too slippery for me./

Personally I dont think she is out on the Great Commission, sharing the God News with unbelievers- I think she is out for tithing members for her church and those who already believe are halfway into her pews.

[kancel]

Pride goeth before a fall.

[Light Speed]

Masquerade is a good term to describe the power projection. Not embraced seriously by many authors is a conveyance that does exist...and is very powerfull..we find refferences to this via the terminology.."Principalities and powers".
Here...spirits do rule quadrants of the earth...reign over nations.
certain aspects of mans behaviour witnesses these powers flowing ...ie events unfold..and the spirits do draw strength via them....so yes sin..but some aspects seem to be more potent in their driving mechanism.....some do not turn off for vast time intervals.

you will see in history events ramp up slowly.....then a outbreak.....then an expansion...usually death,violence..and the loss of freedoms occur.
Some events where quadrant spirits were manifesting:
The Iran/Iraq war...about a decade.
The Balkans.
Afganistan.
South Africa,Rhodesia..then shift to Somalia Eritrea.

There has been a study of late..called spiritual mapping...where nations violence levels began to peak..then the system seemed to move off to another region of the earth...again...mankind perished in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands..accompanied by drought and disease.

This pattern of economic cascade failure...war and disease is noted in the ancient Hebrew prophecies...not that mankind is flipping out planet wide...but that the principalities and powers are converging in time for their last stand.

When the Lord comments that the nations are in emnity with Israel...and man is in emnity with the Lord..the conveyance is this originates in that unseen realm.