Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Evangelism (Part II)


The Practical, Loving God

In my brief experience, most Israelis aren’t very religious, but they can’t run from the religiosity that is around them. They know many stories in the bible, and are aware that they, as Jews, are unique. They even believe that there is something ‘special’ about where they live. The ties cannot be broken between the Christians and Jews and this provides a wonderful opportunity to share the Gospel.

There is a subtle difference between talking to Muslims and Jews that will affect your ability to ‘relate’ to them. Consider Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. If they were on a map that was a timeline, the roads would start with all three of them together. Sometime within Abraham’s life there is a branch in the road, which Muslims traveled on: this branch had many more inputs and sources on it, so the scenery of the Muslim road changed dramatically from that of the Judean and Christian one. Muslims do embrace some of the Christian teachings through Jesus, who they recognize as a ‘good prophet’, but they are selective in this.

The Christian/Judean road continues up to Jesus and here is what is interesting: with the Jewish road, it essentially stagnates. Before 67 AD, Jews and Christians even worshiped in the same temple. After the fall of the temple in 70AD, there have been no more prophets in the Jewish faith, only interpretations of what has already been written. In essence Judaism is a subset of Christianity.

This is why, like my Jewish friends, I can say that my God is ‘the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’. I cannot say this with my Muslim friends because there is only a loose bond of commonality.

I have commented on this before, and I want to reiterate an important point to me: to touch Israel is to touch Christianity. During World War II, many Christians took a view that eliminating the Jewish race was not really their problem: since they, themselves were not Jewish, it was of little matter to them. When the Jews were scourged, we, as Christians, were also scourged.

I found that to have a meaningful dialog, you must recognize the Jesus within the Old Testament. The New Testament is virtually meaningless to Israelis, but rest assured, God’s scarlet thread is available throughout His Testament.

What many Israelis have witnessed in their own life is the traditional failure of religiosity. Unfortunately, there is an excellent example for Israelis of this failure: Hassidic Jews. Hassidic Jews are easily recognized because they usually wear a black suit, have a black top hat, and have long beards, and curly locks which are draped in their hat. They have odd practices to us gentiles: they have specific prayer times, like Muslims, they have strict dietary laws, and other rules that totally govern their life. They make a lot of children. I am generalizing here, but for the most part, they seem pretty miserable.

Hassidic Jews seem to grovel before their God, and their laws are crippling to their way of life. For instance: they cannot use a traditional elevator on Shabbat (What we call the Sabath: from sundown-Friday to sun-up, Sunday Morning), because they aren’t allowed to press the buttons on the elevator. The solution for this is that they set all of the elevators to stop on every floor and open automatically.

Talking to people who have personally witnessed this type of behavior opens a sea of opportunities. Take the basic laws found in Exodus 20 and ask the question: did a loving God make these laws? The reflex-answer is yes. Who do these laws benefit: God, man or no one? Again, man is the clear answer here because the laws are extremely practical. The Ten Commandments are the framework for peaceful coexistence with man and God.

If God is loving, and His law is both beneficial and practical, why would He require his faithful to be miserable and grovel before Him? Sight the Old Testament Covenant that goes something like this: ‘I will be your God and you will be My people.’ There is no mention there of traditions, or of miserable existence. Again God remains practical. Even laws about not eating pork were a great idea before refrigeration: these laws protected people from health issues, allowed people to govern their behavior, and coexist with each other.

For whatever reason, this really hit home with a lot of my friends in Israel. I encouraged them to read the books of the Prophets (portions of the Old Testament), and see for themselves. I believe that God’s own words will turn hearts better than any junk that I can come up with. Through all of this, I made it a point to never isolate Christianity from Judaism, and most of the Israelis were amazed that I knew a lot about their customs and their writings. I believe that this helped to establish some bonds that will result in their salvation.

Next Post will focus on a different way to look at other people's God's.

God Bless
Doug

3 Comments:

Blogger Milly said...

As always an interesting read.

Tue Sep 26, 10:27:00 PM  
Blogger pearlie said...

Doug,
Thanks for the insight into the Israelites. Yes, you should write a book about it ;)

Thu Oct 05, 12:56:00 AM  
Blogger DougALug said...

Thanks Milly/Maeghan,

I was going to name the book: A Yankee Christian in King David's Court.

I will get around to writing it. These posts were my first step toward doing it.

God Bless
Doug

Thu Oct 05, 10:22:00 AM  

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