Monday, October 7, 2024

*** This is a rough transcript of today’s show ***

 

It is the 7th of October 2024. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

 

A happy Monday to you—and to my friends in Minnesota—Golden Gopher fans… congratulations. On Mondays, we head to the mailbag, where I try to answer all of the questions I can. I probably get a dozen or so per everyone that I can answer…. But today, Larry in Kittery Point Maine, I’ve got one answer to your first question, and the newer one will have to wait.

Larry is a pastor in Kittery Point, Maine. The difference between Massachusetts and Maine- wow, an invisible line in the water separates you, but…I have been to Kittery Point- my wife and I ate at the Chauncey Creek Lobster Pier- picked our lobster out of the net, and had it boiled and served with corn.

Larry wrote awhile back to ask a question that didn’t get an answer. His other question was about how we might classify the modern age, noting that “modern” is a cop out. Real quick: broadly, I think culturally, we are in the “information age,” and in the church, we are in the age of “Western Exodus.” I will think more on that.

The first question was about Messianic Jews. Larry’s church welcomed a congregation from the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America to worship in its building, and he was curious about their history.

From the time of Constantine in the 300s to the birth of the modern age in the 18th century, the relationship between Jews and Christians has been marked by the kind of antipathy found in the New Testament. It was in the 17th and 18th centuries with the movement of Eastern European Jews, and eventually, the pogroms brought them to the attention of the wider world. The early Christian impulse was to aid these itinerant folk with things like mutual aid societies and charities. By the early 19th century, we find some Jews converted to Christianity, and organizations developed to aid them in making a Yiddish New Testament and providing worship space. This so-called “Hebrew Christian” movement would get a boost from popular end-times theories that saw physical and geographical Israel as part of the promise. This would dovetail with the “back to Israel” movement, but this was to ethnic Jews still waiting for the Messiah.

The “Messianic Jewish” movement would make the news in the 1960s and 70s amidst the “Jews for Jesus” movement. These are two distinct movements, or we should note- the “Jews for Jesus” was founded by Martin (or Moishe) Rosen and made the most noise in this space, to the consternation of many who critiqued it for making Christians more Jewish instead of making Christians of Jewish people. I read that in a standard “Jews for Jesus” congregation, about half were Christians who “converted” or considered themselves “spiritually Jewish”. I am of the school that I am quiet about worship practices- whether it’s certain days seen as sacred, festivals, new moons, eating practices… Paul seems to put that in the realm of conscience. See Romans 15 and do a word search in Paul for conscience- fascinating stuff, and I think of the utmost importance with this question because Paul was dealing, in a different context, with these questions about “what makes a Jew” and “what makes a Christian.”

If I can make a quick comment- Messianic Jews can get a bad rap for a “replacement” theory wherein the belief is that Christianity has superseded Judaism. This shouldn’t take place ethnically or geographically, legally or otherwise. Jewish people should live and thrive and worship as they see fit.

But the whole Christian message is about the Messiah who emerges from one group of people to bless the whole world. Who is this messiah? This is the Christ who has come for the Jew and the Gentile alike. Paul uses “grafting” language—we are grown or grafted together.

So- ethnic Jews are not “in good” because they are ethnic Jews, but now rather, we are justified by faith in the Messiah, and we might pray that all would come to the knowledge of God in Christ. What is at the center of your worship service? We could ask messianic Jews and many others… and if the answer is Jesus…

 

The last word for today is from the daily lectionary and Psalm 55- a prayer for sanctuary amidst trouble:

Listen to my prayer, O God,
    do not ignore my plea;
    hear me and answer me.


My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught
    because of what my enemy is saying,

    because of the threats of the wicked;


for they bring down suffering on me

    and assail me in their anger.

My heart is in anguish within me;

    the terrors of death have fallen on me.

Fear and trembling have beset me;

    horror has overwhelmed me.

I said, “Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!

    I would fly away and be at rest.

I would flee far away

    and stay in the desert;

I would hurry to my place of shelter,

    far from the tempest and storm.”

 

 This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 7th of October 2024, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who told me that if he had the wings of a dove, he would try jumping off a high roof and into a swimming pool… He is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who, given a choice between flight or invisibility, would ask about metabolism… super metabolism seems cooler now than either of those…I’m  Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.