Rabbi’s Reflections – Tuesday, August 1, 2023
Shalom,
One In Messiah part 28 – Romans, part 139
Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on the One in whom they have not trusted? And how shall they trust in the One they have not heard of? And how shall they hear without someone proclaiming?
Rabbi Trail: I know this is the RR for Tuesday, and this is the third time I’m writing on the same verse. Many times I wake up with thoughts (I hope they are from the Lord) on what to write for the RR. Today is one of those days. I’m writing this before 7AM (which is not unusual), on Sunday morning. Since this is for Tuesday, that is unusual. I almost never write in advance. End RT.
It occurs to me that the last two times I wrote about this verse, I promised a message on Jewish evangelism. Twice I’ve failed to deliver. So, in the spirit of “if at first you don’t succeed…,” let’s try again. In a way, Jewish evangelism is paradoxical. Like everyone, Jewish people have trouble.
Rabbi Trail: Without overstating the problems faced by Jewish people, anti-semitism expressed over centuries of persecution, leading to economic hardship and frequently death, is well documented. My own cousin (from my mother’s generation) died from being hit in the head by a rock thrown at him by “Christians” (see next paragraph) while walking home from Hebrew school. So, when I asked my mother about believing in Yeshua, she said, “Why would you want to believe in agreement with the people who committed the Holocaust?”
People who throw rocks at Jews may not be Christians, but in the Jewish world, they are. Jewish people (by in large) don’t know the plan of salvation. Most people are Jewish, not because of a decision, but because of birth. They believe similarly, if you weren’t born Jewish, then you must have been born Christian (notwithstanding other world religious possibilities). End RT.
The paradox is that the one place Jewish people can find what they are seeking, is the one place they are forbidden by culture to look. Jewish people are waiting with expectation for the Messiah. As believers we’re waiting for His return. Jewish people have the Jewish prophets, they just have not believed them. You would almost think that most Jewish people have a spiritual blindness. (We’ll get to that in the next chapter.)
Yeshua made it clear that the issue isn’t believing in the Messiah, but in believing the Hebrew Scriptures. John 5:46 “For if you were believing Moses, you would believe Me—because he wrote about Me. 47 But since you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” Moses knew Yeshua. He spoke face to face with Him. He wrote this in the Torah… Deuteronomy 18:15 Adonai your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your midst—from your brothers. To him you must listen.
How was Moses different? Numbers 12:6 “Hear now My words!” He said. “When there is a prophet of Adonai, I reveal Myself in a vision, I speak to him in a dream. 7 Not so with My servant Moses. In all My house, he is faithful. 8 I speak with him face to face, plainly and not in riddles. He even looks at the form of Adonai!
Yeshua is Adonai! That is the message. Right there, in Deuteronomy 18, we have the reason God had to send His Son. Deu 18:16 This is just what you asked of Adonai your God in Horeb on the day of the assembly when saying, ‘I cannot continue to hear the voice of Adonai my God or see this great fire any more, or I will die.’ 17 “Adonai said to me, ‘They have done well in what they have spoken. 18 I will raise up a prophet like you for them from among their brothers. I will put My words in his mouth, and he will speak to them all that I command him. 19 Now whoever does not listen to My words that this prophet speaks in My Name, I Myself will call him to account.
When God spoke in Horeb (at Sinai), the people ran away in fear. Exodus 20:18 All the people witnessed the thundering and the lightning, and the sound of the shofar, and the mountain smoking. When the people saw it, they trembled and stood far off. He is coming back to the earth, some will run toward His voice and others will run away in fear. The question is, who will hear His voice and run toward Him, and who will hear His voice and run away. John 10:3b “The shepherd calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4b …and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
You know, this is getting a little long, so I’m going to pick it up again tomorrow. Shalom shalom.
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Tue 1 Aug 2023 14th of Av, 5783
De 9:4-29 Ez 36 1 Ch 15 2 Th 2 (Jn 5)