Last night at church we had a Jewish pastor speak. He said some things that I didn’t know needed to be said about church ministry to Jewish people, so I’m going to write about it. I’ll start with this: Romans 1:16 says the Gospel is for both the Jew and the Gentile (non-Jew), saying it is for the Jew first!
Sometimes we Christians don’t share the Gospel with Jewish people because we think they already know what they need to know. Sometimes we’re intimidated and think they know more than we do about the Old Testament, so we don’t even try to talk with them about the prophecies of the Messiah. Sometimes there’s tension between us because Christianity has done some bad things to Jewish people in the past, so they don’t want to hear about our religion. But in reality, these people are just as in the dark as anyone else, just as in the dark as we have been. I would say the Gospel is for them as much as it is for us, but the Gospel is for them first according to Romans 1:16, so really the Gospel is for us just as much as it is for them! We should be sharing the Gospel with the Jews of all people!
This pastor also let us know that there is antisemitism in churches of all places. Some Christians don’t take the Gospel to Jewish people because they think God is done with them. They say that the Jews killed Jesus Christ, but that’s not true. Some Jewish religious leaders conspired to kill Jesus (and not even all of the leaders conspired), but most of the rest of the people were okay with Jesus, and even liked Him. The pastor pointed out that if God only gave us the Gospel because His chosen people rejected Him and He’s done with them, then that makes us an afterthought and we’re not as loved as we think. God has never been done with His chosen people the Jews. In fact, the pastor said if you read Acts, the vast majority of the first believers in the early church were Jewish! They were quite happy to accept Jesus Christ in large numbers – by the thousands! See Acts 2:41 and 4:4 for two instances in Jerusalem where there were many Jewish people.
We shouldn’t neglect to take the Gospel to anyone for any reason. The Gospel is for everyone, so we should be sharing it with everyone! We’re all starving beggars, so why wouldn’t we share a limitless food source with other starving beggars?
Related:
You Are a Missionary
Prejudice and the Great Commission
Losing Prejudice, Gaining Understanding