Posted on 04/07/2003 8:17:34 PM PDT by 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 didnt 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 didnt need to worry about being saved.
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.
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.
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.
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