Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Fresh News From Messiah Now!

Hello all people,
Happy unofficial start of summer! I'm Nate and I'm the summer intern for Messiah Now Ministries! This will be quite the exciting summer for me here at Messiah Now. I'll be working out in the community to help bring Messiah to our Jewish brothers and Sisters! There will be a lot of reading, writing, praying, and Starbucks involved and, God willing, there will be some great life-changing experiences in the community. During the course of my summer internship here at Messiah Now, I will be working to help inspire and plant seeds in the hearts of nearby Bryn Mawr.
My current reading is a book by Mitch Triestman called "To the Jew First". I checked Google Books for it, but, unfortunately there is no preview available for you to follow along with me, so, I will pick out some highlights from each chapter as I read. Feel free to ask me any questions about context or even my own perception on the readings. Triestman says in Chapter one of his book, "The Biblical Mandate", that according to Matthew Chapter 10 that the disciples were instructed to go to the Jew and not the Gentile, I looked at it and found in The New Living Translation verses 5-7 "Jesus sent out the twelve apostles with these instructions: "Don't go to the Gentiles or the Samaritans, but only to the people of Israel-God's lost sheep. Go and announce to them that the kingdom of Heaven is near." I couldn't help but think that this seems incomplete because I have been brought up on the Great Commission. The Great Commission is more accurately entitled The Great Recommission though, as it was given later. There are definitely two sides to the coin. On the one side one can see the Great Commission replaces the Commission in Matthew, but, on the other side, we can see the Great Commission building on the Matthew verses.
So here it is, your first opportunity to converse with me on the content of this book! What do you think about the two verses? Should the Great Commission build on, or, replace the Matthew Commission? to help clarify, here are the links to each first, the Matthew is here http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010:1-15&version=NIV
and next the great Commission from 18 verses later http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+28:15-17&version=NIV. So, let me hear your thoughts on this one, and keep your eye out for the next update where I will review all of the responses and raise the next question! Also in the next post I will start to share my experiences with my community work at a local Starbucks where I will set up and be starting conversations and building relationships!

4 comments:

  1. i think the verses build on each other, first two the Jewish people then to the gentiles. God come to his chosen people and they have a special place in his heart, but he knows that they are a stubborn people and so we are also commissioned to go the whole world as well. if he only focused on the Jews and not the gentiles then they could not help converting the Jew.

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  2. Thanks for this awesome comment! I can totally see how the two verses build on one another, both with a common goal of reaching the Jewish people! Everyone needs Messiah, and the Jews have been waiting for far longer than the gentiles.

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  3. I'm interested in what the Apostle Paul has to say about God's Chosen people (the Jewish people) becoming believers in Yeshua Messiah - what would he say about Jewish evangelism?

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  4. Hello Elisabeth. After doing some research I found some good verses to reference. In Acts for instance it is mentioned that Paul went into the synagogues, not to the gentiles. These verses are Acts 13:5 and Acts 13:14 and also Acts 14:1 where Paul and Barnabas went to a synagogue and that a “great multitude both of the Jews, and also of the Greeks believed.” Also in Acts 13 in verse 46 Paul and Barnabas went to a synagogue and said “It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you.” Paul is also well known to have said in Romans 9:1-3 “I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” As we know, Paul was a Jew and his kinsmen according to the flesh were the Jews. Also in Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 111 verse 11 is one of the most definitive verses on why the Gentiles are saved, and, it is for the Jews. It Paul says: “I say then. Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy.” In my opinion this verse very explicitly states that the Gentiles are saved to reach the Jews. This is also a great segue into Chapter 2 of “To the Jews First a Textbook on Jewish Evangelism” entitled “The Biblical Messenger” stay tuned for a more in depth coverage of this topic coming very soon!”

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