But We Were First!

I found an interesting article from Ray Gannon, an Assemblies of God (Pentecostal) missionary who is one of the leaders of the Messianic movement. Reverend Gannon has been involved in evangelizing the Jews for over 30 years. In fact, he trains people to be Messianic "rabbis" and Messianic missionaries through an Assemblies of God seminary in California.

In the Winter 2004 issue of Enrichment, Gannon wrote, "The Assemblies of God became the first Protestant group to welcome messianic Jewish congregations into full fellowship despite criticisms of the synagogue movement by other denominations and parachurch organizations. It was quickly recognized that the Messianic synagogue is a Jesus centered, usually Pentecostal, and Jewish cultured assembly...Continued support for an extensive array of culturally relevant incarnational representations of Christ is indispensible to our success in fulfilling our Matthew 28 messianic mandate to reach all people groups (ethne) with the Pentecostal gospel of Jesus..."

This is a perfect definition of the Messianic movement. The Messianic movement presents Jesus in a Jewish-culture format to get Jews to adopt Christianity. In Gannon's case, it is to adopt the Pentecostal version of Christianity. Ultimately, there is no real tie between the Messianic movement and true Judaism; the Messianic movement merely looks Jewish to convince Jews to become Christians.