In Christian terms, the whole idea of having some kind of special relationship with a country or people whose defining characteristic for two thousand years has been their rejection of Jesus Christ is bizarre, to say the least.
The rejection was prophesied, and the writings of Paul make it clear that this is a means of their salvation.
As "bizarre" as the biblical command that the Good News is to be proclaimed "to the Jew first."
Rejection or no rejection, the command stands.
Then the other things don’t matter? Being God’s chosen people, being given that land by God himself, all the prophets and the Bible, that Jesus was Jewish, or that Christianity itself is only a branch of the original tree of Judaism, albeit one they generally reject? There’s no cultural connection from all that?
It is not bizarre to anyone who actually reads the Bible. This is The Plan. We are 23 months into the Book of the Revelation. The next 19 months are going to be very exciting. Hold fast to what you were taught when you first believed.
Not exactly. The unbelieving Jews were given a blindness in part as prophesied in the OT. Once the time of the gentiles is fulfilled God’s focus will turn again to the jews( not that it really ever left) and Christ will establish a Jewish kingdom on earth and rule the earth for 1000 years.
no it isn’t bizarre- God’s word is all about His people being restored to Him in the end- all through His word he has archetypes showing Israel obeying, then falling away, then being restored etc- this mimics even Christians who fall away and get restored- (Though we don’t lose our salvation- but God’s word is about restoring fallible sin proned man)
His love is so great and long suffering that He puts up with rebellion knowing one day they will come around again- His word promises He will not leave them simply because they reject Him- and honestly, a lot of Jews do become Christians-
Their rejection of Jesus Christ is not their defining characteristic. They are God’s chosen people.
I have a lot of crap about replacement theology That was/is promoted by the Catholic Church. I can find nothing in scripture that makes that claim for Jesus and for God’s abandonment of Israel or the Jewish people.
It also flies in the face of god’s attributes and character. He knows all the futures but made a promise that He knew that He would not keep? Sound bizarre to me and not in His character.
If God were to do that to His chosen people then what about my salvation. Is God going to change his mind again? Did God lie to Abraham and Israel? Did He lie about my salvation? So when did God become able to be evil? I thought that was not part of who He is
Re the Jewish rejection “of Jesus Christ” for 2,000 years is not exactly what you mean.
For some of us Jews, we look at Jesus as another one of the “teachers” (rebbes) who came along during the BC/AD Roman rule of Israel, with a different message about how to react to this occupation and desecration of the Holyland and the Holy City of Jerusalem.
We find Jesus to be neither the “son of God” nor a “madman”. He was somewhere inbetween and those who chose to follow him changed his Judaism into a different form known as Christianity . It evolved after his death, but was not established during it or even in the first few decades (as I recall) as an established religion.
Remember, Josephus wrote about the “Jewish” or “Hebrew” revolts against the Roman occupation, not a “Christian revolt”.
Some of us, when in a discussion with our Christian friends, in terms of referring to Christ (as a teacher/rebbe) say that “He’s a Jew who made good” (with a little tongue in cheek and some pride).
Let’s be proud of what both Judaism and Christianity have given to the world in terms of the constructs of “humanity”, tolerance, compassion, and learning”. That is what we have in common while facing an extremist Islam that destroyed those concepts (and still is), throughout their existence.
In Christian terms, the whole idea of having some kind of special relationship with a country or people whose defining characteristic for two thousand years has been their rejection of Jesus Christ is bizarre, to say the least.
That's because the Bible means very little to you. Your utopia, your peak of human civilization, was in the Middle Ages. Fundamentalist Protestants have a very different frame of reference. They have no Middle Ages and no history, really (since they regard chrstianity as it developed historically as an abomination). So where are their ancestors in the faith? Where are their saints?
They are in the Hebrew Bible. They don't have Agnes and Louis IX and Bernard, but they have Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, etc. While your attention is scattered over volumes of post-Biblical theological development, theirs is concentrated on their bible alone. And the ancient Hebrews occupy a much more important place for them than for you.
There has been one and only one true Theocracy in human history. It wasn't chrstian. You have Constantine; they have David. You have medieval cathedrals; they have the Psalms. You have sublime statuary (most of which is forbidden by Halakhah); they have the Holy Temple. Is it any wonder they want it back??? You want to restore Constantine. They want to restore David.
You have no idea how absolutely and totally alien historical chrstianity is to anyone from the Bible Belt. A thousand years of Torah was intended to pave the way for another legal system, only allegedly superior because it was post-Biblical? How can anything post-Biblical be superior to anything Biblical??? Your veneration of statues and icons and saints and the virgin might as well be a religion from some other planet. Is this what Judaism allegedly "paved the way" for--something its polar opposite which violates all its most basic principals?
To Fundamentalist Protestants the whole experience with the "Law" taught the need for Calvin's Loophole. But for you it taught the need of another religion whose only difference from that of the Torah was that it was decidedly inferior. If one is going to have rites and ceremonies, holidays, holy places, etc., how can those of the Bible be improved on? They can't. Your ceremonial and calendar developed slowly and organically over the centuries. In the Torah G-d spoke to Moses and ordered the ceremonial and the holidays. You think a slow, organic development can trump the very Mouth of G-d? Pathetic.
The Fundamentalist Protestant wants nothing to do with you, or any form of historical chrstianity. A legal code? Doing good and avoiding evil (which according to Luther and Calvin can't be done anyway)? Keeping a law? Why not then retain the actual legal/ceremonial system that proceeded from the Mouth of G-d?
To the Fundamentalist Protestant J*sus came to provide them with a legal loophole whereby people who otherwise could never avoid anything other than Hell could actually be saved. They see your legal system, its refusal to promise or assure anything, as a very poor "salvation." Why, they were no better off before . . . in fact, they were better off, because the Torah came directly from G-d. You really think the replacing of one legal system by another (the only difference being the first one was literally from G-d) was an improvement? It was a disappointment, and even a decay. If there is no Lutheran/Calvinistic salvation, then why be a chrstian at all? This is the question I faced 29 years ago.
I'll never understand how people whose very rationale of chrstianity is so different can simply move into the liturgical churches because of history. If that is chrstianity, who needs it? I suspect this is one reason Fundamentalist Protestants refuse to consider what I say. They have to cling to Protestantism as the "one true" chrstianity in spite of its ahistorical nature because to do otherwise would be to admit that chrstianity is a fraud. This is why they resist you so fanatically, even though the ancient world never knew anything like Protestantism.
These poor people think J*sus died in their place. There is not an ancient church in the world that believes in any form of penal substitution. Their main use of the crucifixion seems to be as an excuse to start a new religion and to say the Jews are the "bad guys" now. To one who knows only penal subsitution, all this two thousand year history of "deicide" and "chr*st-killer" nonsense is without the slightest underpinning of logic. J*sus took your place in Hell and you are mad at the Jews for playing their role in it? What, you want to go there yourself?
Keep your Middle Ages and your cathedrals and your "holy wells" in every country in Europe. Keep your post-Biblical holidays and laws and ceremonies. If Protestantism isn't true (which it isn't) there is no alternative but to admit that the Jews were right all along.
And btw . . . the Jews' defining characteristic has not been the rejection of chrstianity, but the clinging to G-d and His Torah. This requires the rejection of chrstianity, islam, paganism, and every other religion in history. I realize that for you Israel has taken the place of (lehavdil!) `Amaleq. But there was already a Chosen Nation and an accursed nation. Neither one needed to be replaced.
Poor things. It breaks my heart seeing them living such a fantasy so stubbornly. But they will do so. But should the day come when they admit that your version of chrstianity is the original (or as close to it as we can come), how many do you think will smile and convert to it . . . and how many will ask the question "if it wasn't broke, why fix it?"