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.

[Illbay]

Do you not agree that Judaism is NOT an ethnicity, then?

As I said, I was very firmly told by my Jewish friend's family, that this was absolutely a false notion.

Note that I say "ethnicity," which denotes genealogy, not "culture." But there are also many Jewish "cultures," depending upon where in the world those Jews live.

[BrooklynGOP]

As I said, I was very firmly told by my Jewish friend's family, that this was absolutely a false notion.

I think that being Jewish is both an ethnicity and religion. By the way, I find it interesting that you have a picture of an "American Jew" given that Jews (just like everybody else) immigrated here.

[Illbay]

Well, good point, I should have said "European-American." Gotta do the "hyphen thing," ya know.

[BrooklynGOP]

No, my point is that an American Jew is not any different from a Eastern European Jew if his family came from there (like mine). Same goes for Yemeni, etc.

[Auntie Dem]

No one can ever be equal to God. If you could become equal to God then you would be another God with the same attributes.

I never said we (or any human) could be equal to God--God said it. Revelation 3:21 seems unequivocal to me. The only qualificaion is being one that "overcometh". That would appear to require something more than Grace, perhaps some form of "works"?

Consider this, which kind of a God is more powerful, one who can (and did) create something that can become just as he is, or one that can't (or won't)?

The scriptures you cite obviously refer to us in our human and mortal state, where clearly no human can be like God. See 1 John 3:1-2 where John refers to some future time (post mortality) when "...we shall be like him..."

You may choose to limit what God can do with his creations, I choose to accept that our potential is unlimited because he has said as much. BTW, this is not something I choose to do out of ambition or ego, but only to emulate Him as best as I can--I will do my part, but realize ultimately He makes it all possible.

[Auntie Dem]

Thanks for clearing that up for me. Someone had told me once that Mormons believe that God is a man with a physical body who was redeemed on another planet by another Jesus and achieved godhood,

Perhaps you misunderstood, Mormons do believe that God has a tangible body (See Luke 24:39), and that at some time he may not have been God. To fully understand that apparent contradiction requires an infinite mind, and we have something quite less than that in our present state. However, if you refer to John 5:18-19 you will see that Jesus is explaining to the Pharisees that he is only doing what he has seen his father do. The implication is God also had a mortal life where He did what Jesus did during his mortality. Since we know that Jesus grew from grace to grace, the assumption is God at some time also did.

As I mentioned an apparent contradiction about how God has always been God, yet could not have eternally been God if he went through a mortality like Jesus, requires us to re-examine our understanding of the meaning of eternal and eternity.

None of this belief on my part in any way (IMHO) diminishes the nature and stature of God. I only presently lack the ability to adequately communicate my spotty understanding of His nature.

[Proud2BAmerican]

Did God (not Jesus) have a mortal life on Earth? Or do you believe He had a mortal life on some other planet?

And now I'm confused -- do you believe that when Mormon males become gods, they get their own planets?

[Auntie Dem]

I do not believe God the Father had a mortal life on this earth. But God the Son did. When the Old Testament (sorry, no exact cite at hand) said something to the effect of "...God Himself is come down among us..." it referred to Jesus as Jehovah.

Whether those who overcome and become like God have their own "planets" is not a point I dwell on. it seems rather like pondering whether the Pearly Gates swing in or out. Interesting, but not essential to know.