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.

[AD from SpringBay]

You have an arrogance about you that is revolting, by the way. "I don't belong to a sect. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ."

How very astute of you, Gurn.

[Sloth]

Actually the apparent hypocrisy is quite consistent with their belief in the Calvinist 'once saved, always saved' doctrine... they can have their cake and eat it, too.

[Bella_Bru]

When they come up against a jew raise din a shomer shabbos home, they usually either A)back off, because they know it won't work or B)They try to reword their sales pitch.

I am just thankful I upped my donation to Jews for Judaism.

[HiTech RedNeck]

The 144K are representative of the saved Jews, not the literal entire set of them. The list of tribes isn't the same as the list of tribes elsewhere in the Bible (which isn't even the same everywhere it appears). The throng that no one could count are representative of the saved Gentiles. No surprise that the Gentiles vastly outnumber the Jews; that's an empirical fact.

[Illbay]

Well, your quaint mischaracterizations aside, my real point is that one must accept Christ, and His gospel.

Without such acceptance, your birth means nothing.

[Gurn]

Are Jesus and Satan brothers?

[BrooklynGOP]

I have a friend who's in and out of rehab cause of his heroin addiction. He is not attending some Jews for Jesus services.. My mother's friend's son got into a BAD car accident in Flordida. He basically spent a year in the hospital. She began to attend Jews for Jesus. Seems like J4J is only succesful with non practicing Jews who are going through a tough time in their lives.

[Illbay]

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you say here, with the addition that it is necessary for ALL to come unto Christ.

No one is exempt from that requirement.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Bella why do you buck Christianity, but don't seem to care about the sexual morality common to both Judaism and Christianity?

[Illbay]

There is nothing you say here with which I disagree, as it happens.

[HiTech RedNeck]

No more than light can have fellowship with darkness

[power2]

,,,,In other words, their Christian convictions were heart-felt and lived out vs held in a surface way as one would put on a coat.

"Heart-felt" doesn't mean squat. That means "feelings" and "feelings" can mislead. Many Germans were "heart-felt" that the Jews needed to be destroyed, and "lived it out". The "9-11" hijackers were "heart -felt" in their opinion that crashing 4 or more jets into the heart of the land of "Satan" was good.

I do not mean to denigrate the SB of AoG folks, many of whom are true Christians, but the "heart-felt arguement is way off base, IMHO. Trying to follow "feelings" can be dangerous to the walk of any Christian.

[Gurn]

I know. I want to hear the Mormon's answer. He's spent an entire thread haughtily lecturing people about "Christianity". He has no business doing that.

[Illbay]

But I have never noticed that SBs are particularly "Calvinist" (AoGs may be a different matter).

And even a Calvinist, if he has his head on straight, will note that one's living his life in such a state of debauchery is likely a sign that one is not Elect.

For myself, I think that they just didn't really think that much about it. Hence, my point about so many of them of my acquaintance being "shallow."

[Clint N. Suhks]

I’ve not seen this before…thank you.

[Illbay]

Where did Satan come from?

[BnBlFlag]

"I don't belong to a sect. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ"..............Perhaps the "sect" of "Latter Day Saints"?

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

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.

[Gurn]

Interesting that he left that part out, huh?

[laureldrive]

all but one book of the New Testement was written by Jews

Pardon my ignorance, but which New Testament book WASN'T written by a Jew?