Building bridges where history builds walls.
These final three items complete the list I have been developing in seven previous blog posts. These last three are not highly developed here, but the ideas are clear enough that you can understand and consider them. Please do! 8. A mature disciple of Yeshua will commit to missional responsibility for the growth of Messianic […]
Commit to familial respect for church bodies where Yeshua is honored, the Bible respectfully taught, and the ordinances reverently administered. It is regrettable that there are many in the Messianic Jewish movement who speak disparagingly and condescendingly of the church. Often the church is dismissed because “they don’t celebrate the feasts, “they don’t keep Torah,” […]
#6 – Commit to respecting and honoring God’s continuing work among the Jewish people and our leaders for the past 4000 years. In other words, surrendering a bias against tradition. In and around the Messianic Jewish world one will encounter a wide variety of attitudes toward Jewish tradition. But if one were to generalize, the […]
Commit to exploring a lifetime of multi-styled prayer, knowing that it is in times of prayer, communication with God, that catalytic changes and events in our life with God are likely to occur. As one reads through Scripture, there are details that are so commonly present that we miss them. One of those details is […]
#4 – Commit to exploring the mystery and majesty of engagement with and empowerment by Ruach HaKodesh (The Holy Spirit) When it comes to matters of our engagement with and empowerment by the Holy Spirit there are two problems that confront us, and both are in the realm of imagination, which is a tightrope we […]
In outlining these Ten Commitments, we are talking here about the contours of a well-formed, balanced, and mature identity for Jewish followers of Yeshua. And for sure, being “well-formed, balanced, and mature” will include being respectful, judicious, and appropriate. What I mean is this: God has not called us to button-hole everyone we see and […]
This blog-post continues a series on Ten Commitments that describe the way of life to be embodied and embraced by mature Jewish disciples of Yeshua. This is the second of ten. The others will follow. No claim is being made or implied that this is last word on the subjects I cover. Rather it is a […]
One of my life tasks is to assist those who want to grow as faithful Jews while also seeking and valuing the added benefit that is ours in and through The More Jewish Jesus. In this connection, I have been thinking lately about how I would sketch the maturity that we are seeking to develop. […]
This is an edited version of a sermon presented on Shabbat Chukkat, a time when we read the story of an unlikely biblical hero who has much to teach us about transformative change. I am here today to recruit some of you to a transformed life, a life of strange and wonderful intimacy with God, […]
Should Messianic Jews spend any time working out the implications of Jewish identity? Recently I interacted with a reputable leader who indicated he considers this enterprise a waste of time, a kind of cultural navel-gazing, or perhaps an effort to win strokes from the wider Jewish world. In either case, he labeled it a wasteful […]