Keeping Judaism Jewish

Just wanted to give a heads up about a new counter-missionary blog, Keeping Judaism Jewish: http://keepingjudaismjewish.wordpress.com/

Delayed-Just For A Bit

Back in September, I wrote that I will be getting back to updating my website and blog....and well, some things have come up that will lead to a bit of a longer delay for major changes. Nothing bad-actually, things are pretty good in my non-internet life but very busy. I will probably not be doing much updating and writing until February. So, until then-stay true to Judaism and check out these sites:

www.jewsforjudaism.org

www.whatjewsbelieve.org

www.outreachjudaism.org

Messianic Finances

I have received numerous e-mails over the years trying to tell me that the Messianic movement is definitely not spending large sums of money to convert Jews. The e-mails present the Messianic movement as a cash-poor movement. However, the facts show that this is clearly not true.

Some of the largest Messianic groups are members of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, a Christian organization which monitors the financial honesty of its members. The ECFA makes public the finances of its members.

According to the ECFA website (accessed 11/8/11) "ECFA is committed to helping Christ centered organizations earn the public's trust through developing and maintaining standards of accountability that convey God-honoring ethical practices....ECFA defines Christ-centered organizations as those organizations that subscribe to a written statement of faith clearly

affirming a commitment to the evangelical Christian faith."

As a sidebar, let's contemplate the second part of the quote. Every single Messianic group whose finances I am about to quote have to be committed to evangelical Christianity. Again, further proof that the Messianic movement is a Christian movement and not a Jewish one.

Now, I will list the Messianic groups on the ECFA website that have total expenditures of over $1 million dollars in the most recent year listed by the ECFA. In each case, I have rounded down their latest financial year, so the actual number is higher that what I have listed.:

Organization Expenditures

Jews for Jesus: $19.5 million

Chosen People Ministries $10.9 million

Ariel Ministries $1.7 million

Life in Messiah International $1.1 million

Maoz Israel Ministries $2.7 million

CJF Ministries $3.7 million

Jewish Voice Ministries International $12.4 million

Messianic Jewish Alliance of America $5 million

Messianic Jewish Bible Institute $1 million

Tikkun International $ 3 million

Total

$61 million

In just these ten Messianic groups, $61 million is being spent to evangelize the Jews. Again, each group must be committed to evangelical Christianity to be part of the ECFA despite the fact that they present themselves as Jewish. Considering that there are generally estimated to be less than 15 million Jews in the world, the amount of money being spent by just these ten groups is mind-boggling.

Temple Sacrifice Versus Jesus

One of the great errors of the Messianic movement is claiming that Jesus' death was a sin sacrifice. In truth, there is nothing remotely similar between Jesus' death and the actual sacrifices at the Holy Temple. Biblical law is entirely clear that Jesus' death is not a legal form of sin sacrifice. For a sin sacrifice, the only allowable items were cows, sheep, goats, a few types of birds and flour. Yes, the Bible allows flour as a sacrifice for the poor-the entire idea that a "blood sacrifice" was necessary is simply un-Biblical. Humans were not on the list of sacrifices. The sin sacrifice ceremony was done by the Kohanim, the priests, and the Bible prescribes the details of the ritual with specific laws. The sacrifice was done at the Holy Temple, or prior to the Holy Temple being built, at the Tabernacle. The sacrifice was for past sins. All of the above are the mandatory laws of Biblical sin sacrifice.

Now, let's look at Jesus. He was a man who was killed by the Romans on a cross away from the Holy Temple. If we compare his death to a sacrifice, there are many Biblical legal problems. The sacrificial item is Biblically illegal. The ceremony was incorrect and done by the wrong people at the wrong place. Moreover, Messianics claim that his death removes sin that occurred roughly 2000 years after his death. Biblical law prescribes that sacrifice removes past sins, not future sins.

When I point this out to Messianics, I have gotten the response that I am being too "legalistic." But do you think G-d gave these laws for no good reason? Do you think that G-d gave them to be ignored? I, and the rest of true Judaism, believe that G-d gave laws because G-d wanted them followed.

Let me finish with a comparison. Let us compare the legality of Jesus' death as "sacrifice" to legal driving. To be as off on legal driving as Jesus' death is to a real sacrifice, you would have to have an underaged child driving a non-street legal vehicle backwards down a sidewalk. In the driving analogy, there is clearly the wrong person driving the wrong vehicle, using the wrong method of driving and in the wrong location. All of these were also wrong with Jesus. With Jesus' death we see the wrong sacrificial item (Jesus), wrong people offering sacrifice (Romans), wrong method (cross) and at the wrong place (away from the Temple). Plus, the idea that a sacrifice can be applied to sins centuries after the "sacrifice" was made is Biblically wrong.

Efraim Goldstein-Christian Seminarian

Previously, I documented how Jews for Jesus -Tel Aviv branch founder Efraim Goldstein (real name: Fred) is an ordained Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA) minister. I left out that he earned a Doctorate of Ministry from Asbury Theological Seminary, a Christian seminary in Kentucky. The seminary is approved by the United Methodist Church.

As for Goldstein, his dissertation was on mentors to Jews who have accepted Jesus, clearly not a Jewish topic. It was titled, "The common characteristics of mentors of new believers in Jesus in Israel." Here is a link to the abstract:

http://gradworks.umi.com/34/28/3428676.html

Again, how can he (or any Jews for Jesus member) say he represents a Jewish group when he has a doctorate of ministry from a Christian seminary? Clearly, Goldstein lies.

What Do You Call A Jew Who Believes in Jesus?

I often have readers from the Messianic movement tell me that their movement is from the original Jesus movement in the 1st century. But realistically, that is not so. Messianic "Judaism" is very, very new.

If you think about it, what did you call a Jew who believed in Jesus during the 300's? A Christian. What did you call a Jew who believed in Jesus in the 1200's? A Christian.

Pablo Christiani, a Jewish convert to Christianity who lost a debate to Nachmanides, is one of the most famous from this time period. What did you call a Jew who believed in Jesus in the 1500's. A Christian.

This answer only began to change in the 1860's when the answer to what do you call a Jew who believed in Jesus started to become a "Hebrew-Christian." This answer was created by the Church of England, who founded the idea of Hebrew-Christianity (later called "Messianic Judaism") as a means of evangelizing the Jews. It was not until the late 1960's-early 1970's that the answer to what do you call a Jew who believed in Jesus became "Messianic Jew" as Hebrew Christianity embraced this new terminology.

Messianic "Jews" unfortunately have been misled to think that they have some sort of historical tie to Jesus. The truth is that historically, Messianic "Judaism" has exactly the same ties to Jesus as all other branches of Christianity.

Jews for Jesus/EFCA

Within the Messianic world, many of the leaders are ordained Christian ministers. In the case of Efraim Goldstein of Jews for Jesus (the founder of their permanent ministry in Tel Aviv), he is an ordained minister of the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA). How do I know this? Well, it is in the first paragraph of this article from EFCA Today!

http://www.efcatoday.org/site/back-issues/article/before-you-travel-to-israel-for-a-sabbatical

This reminds me how Jews for Jesus founder Martin "Moishe" Rosen was a Baptist minister. Just more evidence that Jews for Jesus, well, isn't Jewish!

FYI-according to a March 1985 article that Goldstein wrote for Jews for Jesus, his parents never gave him the name Efraim. His birth name is Fred.

My Apologies

I would like to apologize to all of my blog and website readers for my lack of focus on the blog and site for quite some time. Over the next few months, I plan to re-focus energy to editing my website (as so many other sites change causing my site to end up with dead links), putting up new sections to the website and writing new blog posts. This is going to take a bit-it is not like the internet is my "day job" (or that I lack for other activities in my life) but I am looking forward to spending more time doing my counter-missionary activities. Enjoy!